AU4: The Traveler
by Lilac Reverie
Summary: Alternating Universes Series, Part Four: An alien invasion threatens the Earth of Pete's World, as young women are kidnapped - including Corin and Rose's daughter Donna! Can they solve the riddle and find her in time? A/U TenB/Rose
1. Prologue: Corporate Sharks

_**Author's Note:** This story is the fourth in my series _Alternating Universes_, containing _Sea Change, Through the Looking Glass_ (the original, not the Redux)_, _and_ Rhapsody and Fugue in Who Major. _New readers are _strongly_ urged to begin at the beginning. Thank you.  
_

* * *

**Alternating Universes, Part Four:**

**The Traveler**

An alien invasion threatens the Earth of Pete's World, as young women are kidnapped -  
including Corin and Rose's daughter Donna! Can they solve the riddle and find her in time?

**Prologue: Corporate Sharks**

Rose Tyler Gallifrey paused in front of the massive double doors and took a deep, steadying breath, then turned to the newly-minted twenty-five-year-old beside her and smiled. "Ready?"

He grinned back, so much a younger version of his late father that her breath caught in her throat, as always. _God, how I miss him._ "I've _been_ ready," he replied. The grin got even wider as he gave her their family's longtime catch-phrase: "Allons-y?"

"Allons-y!" she laughed back past the reflexive pang, and together they pushed open the doors and strode into the plush walnut-and-chrome board room of Pete Tyler Industries, ready to take on the world.

She walked purposefully to the head of the long table, where the chair had been pulled back, waiting, while her companion stopped halfway from the door and stood quietly with his hands clasped behind his back, parade rest; ostensibly watching Rose but surreptitiously surveying the room out of the corners of his eyes

Rose ignored the black leather seat and stood to address the gathered board members, flicking on the recorders. "Good morning, all. I won't waste time with speeches today. Ladies and gentlemen, there's a motion on the table. All in favor?"

Her eyes swept around the table as a chorus of "Aye's" came back to her. Even Simmons voted yes. _The snake._

"Opposed?" Silence.

"Thank you. Then as of this moment, in accordance with the terms of my father's will, and with the unanimous consent of this Board of Directors, I hereby relinquish the Board Chairmanship in favor of my brother, Tony Tyler."

She stepped back to the far side of the chair, and Tony snapped out of his deceptively casual stance and marched up to take her place. Ignoring the chair as she had, he rested his fingertips on the polished wood table with the subtlest hint of possessiveness, while his eyes did an open circuit, meeting each board member's eyes for a brief, assessing moment before moving on. More than one of them were holding their breath, waiting.

Tony took a deep, relaxed breath, reveling in this moment that he'd waited so long and worked so hard for, then he let it out and smiled at the assemblage – a hint of tiger showing its fangs. "Thank you, ladies and gentleman. I appreciate your votes of confidence. My father worked incredibly hard to rebuild this company back out of the ashes of Lumic's disaster, and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. It now falls on my shoulders to keep his dream alive, to guide and steer PTI on a steady course, keeping it on the leading edge of communications technology. And make no mistake, I intend to to exactly that.

"To begin with, it should come as no surprise to any of you that I am making a number of changes right off the bat – beginning right here in this room." He paused, judging reactions. Nobody moved – they were all of them far too experienced in the corporate jungle for such transparency.

Tony smiled again. "Mr. Simmons." All eyes snapped to the man in the middle of the table on Tony's right.

Simmons kept tight rein on his expression, schooling it into what he hoped was pleasant willingness, with a hint of humble surprise. _Now it comes,_ he thought. _I'm finally going to get the Vice Chairmanship I deserve. God how I despise that woman, that _nobody_. How Pete __could have saddled us with her, I'll never understand. His _daughter_. As if._ He didn't allow his eyes to flicker over at Rose, but kept them on the young man he'd been studiously, quietly mentoring over the past year.

Tony could almost see the thoughts behind the old man's forehead. He let the silence draw out just long enough, then let his smile go feral. Simmons had about one microsecond warning.

"Get out."

There was dead silence in the room, as twenty-eight people stayed absolutely still.

Simmons blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Get out. Go. You're fired. You are no longer a member of this board. Adios."

Simmons forced himself to close his gaping mouth, and rose to his feet to use his six-feet-four to its usual advantage. "What..."

That's as far as he got. "You fought against my sister every step of the way, ever since the day Dad died. You tried your best to sabotage her, and damn near tore the board and the company apart to do it. Do you _really_ think I'm going to keep a snake like you on my board? Not for one second. _Out!_"

_So that's how the wind blows, is it? Don't think I'm going without a fight, you young pup._ "You can't fire me from the board. I'm a major stockholder. It takes –"

Tony cut him off. "Not any more. One: _you_ don't own the stock; your company does. Two: as of about twenty minutes ago, just after the stock market opened, you no longer own your company. It was taken over – hostilely, I might add – by George's Dragon Enterprises. You really should have answered your pages." He smiled again, all tiger now. "Oh, did I forget to mention? _I'm_ George's Dragon. SimTech now belongs to me." He paused to let that sink in, then waved a nonchalant hand. "Oh, don't worry, you can have it back, for a very simple – and non-negotiable – price: every share of PTI stock SimTech holds." He paused again, then dropped the smile and went in for the kill. "Either way, you are off this board, as of right now.

Now _Get. Out. Of my. Boardroom._"

Simmons stared down the table for another long moment, then glanced around, looking for support. He found none. Finally, he pushed back his chair and walked stiffly out of the room.

No-one spoke or moved yet, absorbing what had just happened, wondering what else was to come. Then, from the other side of the table, movement: Simmons' crony, Thompson, simply pushed back his chair and stood, nodded curtly to the new Chairman, acknowledging the young man's victory, and walked out behind the other man without saying a word.

Rose, who had stood by silently, unmoving, during the byplay, let out her breath in a long, silent sigh of relief. She'd been a bit more worried about Thompson than Simmons, truth to tell: they hadn't been able to manage the same coup on him; he was far too diversified. She was grateful that the snake's buddy had decided to toss in the towel with grace and dignity – he could have made things ugly. As it was now, Tony had the room he needed to maneuver.

Tony glanced around at Rose. A signal passed, and they both relaxed. As she stepped around the table to Thompson's vacated seat (she wasn't _about_ to take Simmons'), he moved with her, pulling the chair out and seating her without a word. No one remaining at the table missed the symbolism of the act, nor had they missed that of her previous position at his shoulder: Pete Tyler's offspring stuck together. Period.

Tony returned to the head of the table and finally sat in his father's chair, then spread his hands out to either side on the polished wood. He gave the Board an open, challenging smile.

"Now, then. Into the future. Shall we get started?"


	2. Contact

**Contact**

_He sat in a slightly uncomfortable straight-backed wooden chair at a large research table in the Archives, deep underground below the capital city. The massive wooden table was strewn with books and data sticks and a computer terminal, but the man's eyes were closed, almost as if asleep. He'd been there several hours, searching through the oldest of the ancient records, from the earliest days of the Archive. Now, he simply sat, waiting._

_The wizened Chief Archivist paused in the doorway, studying the man for a moment. He was a tall man, slender but athletic, with unruly brown hair. He appeared fully human – a rarity for these times. The Archivist couldn't remember the last time he'd seen anyone so human. And his eyes..._

_The Archivist shook his shoulders at the memory of those haunted eyes, and bustled in as if he'd just crossed the threshold. "Here you are, sssir. Sssorry it took ssso long." He placed the ancient volume he'd fetched from the deep vaults carefully on the table._

_The man opened his eyes and smiled – really, it was a very handsome smile, even if he did only have a shockingly sparse thirty-two teeth. Just a single row! The Archivist suddenly felt ashamed of himself for his automatic prejudice, and found himself trying even harder to suppress the sibilance of his gill slits."Will there be anything else, ssir?"_

"_Not at the moment, Archivist. I thank you."_

"_May I assk what it iss you are looking for, ssir?"_

_He smiled again. "Just catching up on a bit of family history."_

^..^

Rose saved and sent the computer file she'd been slaving over and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. Really, that blasted Quarterly Report to the Crown was more of a headache every year. Even though Torchwood had broken free of the most onerous aspects of government oversight when they'd become commercially successful, back when her babies were still babies, she still faced this delicate task of maintaining cordial relations with the government, which meant that every three months she did an intricate dance with her computer, saying just enough, but not too much, about certain ongoing projects, but never revealing all.

Really, sometimes it was just too much. At least it was done for this go-round.

_Thirty years..._ she mused, as she was doing often these days. Thirty years she'd been in this world, since the day she'd slipped off the lever and almost been sucked into the void, before Pete had bounced in and grabbed her, pulling her here just before the walls between the worlds closed. She spared a thought, as she always did at this point in her musings, for her other self back in the other universe, bonded with the Doctor. At least she hoped so. She hoped they'd keep running from adventure to adventure forever – in her imagination, they did. _Although, if the Doctor still can't regenerate, does that mean he's getting as old and creaky as the rest of us are? They might be hobbling rather than running by now._

_It's probably Joshua doing all the running these days._ She glanced down at the ruby ring on her right hand, catching the faintest of glows deep within. She'd had the crystal the Doctor had left her and Corin made into a ring, and had never once taken it off in the six years since it had first glowed to let them know he was all right, a few days after he'd disappeared back to other universe along with her twin. The glow had slowly faded over the ensuing weeks, but had never entirely gone out. She chose to think that meant he was _still_ OK, as long as it had even the tiniest spark. _Some day he'll make it back home again. Some day._

She thought again to the question Corin had asked her last month, when she'd remarked on the thirtieth anniversary to him. Would she trade, if she could? Would she go back and turn left? She smiled, tenderly, and gave herself the same answer she'd given him: no. Oh, of course she had regrets, certain things she'd do differently, but not that. She adored her life, adored her children, and most especially, she adored her husband. Her bondmate. Literally, her other half. Corin. All the best parts of the Doctor in a human-accessible package. And all hers.

The years certainly hadn't been continuous smooth sailing. They'd had their share of abysmal lows, and not just Joshua's disappearance. Only nine months after_ that_ fateful day, Pete's jet had gone down somewhere over the North Sea, with both her mother and father aboard (along with the pilot). No bodies or wreckage had ever been found. Her one consolation had been that they'd gone together, as they'd lived the previous twenty-three years since Jackie had jumped worlds. They'd been so much a part of each other that neither one of them would have long survived losing the other again.

She'd been thrust into the spotlight then, stepping in to run PTI as Pete had specified in his will, until Tony had turned twenty-five and taken over the helm. He'd done that with a vengeance, too, and set the world on fire. A string of brilliant innovations, both technological and management-wise, had catapulted the PTI back into the top one hundred companies in the world, and put its dashing young – and eligible – owner forever in the ranks of _wunderkind._ Pete would have been so proud.

Some of those technological innovations had come from Tyler, in fact. Rose and Corin's older son had been offered several positions in academia and research, but decided instead to join the "family firm", going to work for his grandfather. He'd watched the separate changeovers from the PTI lab, relieved to be on the sidelines. Management was not his forte, research was. Donna, meanwhile, was about to receive her MD up at Cambridge, and had already been accepted at her first choice of teaching hospital for her next three years of residency.

Rose had been _quite_ relieved to leave the PTI boardroom that day four years ago after handing over the reins to her brother, and had managed to make good her laughing promise to Tony to never set foot in it again. She was content to return to her neglected Torchwood, which seemed a haven of sanity and rationality after the rarified corporate atmosphere up on the top floors of One Canada Square.

At some point in the future, she would turn Torchwood over to someone else and retire for good, but not for a good long while yet. She was only fifty-three, for heaven's sake. And she quite simply loved it, loved everything about it. This Earth hadn't seen the seemingly-constant alien invasions that had plagued the other one – she'd often wondered if the Doctor hadn't been a magnet for them, somehow – but that was one thought she didn't share with Corin. At any rate, it had seen enough incursions to make her Institute a worthwhile endeavor, even if some individuals – like her old nemesis, Lord Cutler, the former Intelligence chief – didn't agree.

She glanced at the clock on the wall: four o'clock. _Time to go home. Enough for one day._ She reached over to pick up her purse, just as her computer began beeping wildly, her desk phone and mobile phones both began ringing, and an alarm sounded from the outer office. She grabbed the desk phone first with its in-house ringtone.

"Gallifrey. Speak to me!"

"Alien spaceship sighted overhead, ma'am! We're tracking it now!"

"On my way!"

Ignoring the other rings, she ran for the stairs and dashed down one floor to the Control Room. She pulled out her mobile as she went, telling it to dial Corin's number; he was up at Cambridge that day, teaching. He probably wouldn't answer if he was in class, and she didn't want to disturb him until necessary. She clicked off when it went to voice mail as she strode into the Control Room, rapping out "Status!"

"One large spaceship in high orbit, synched right above us. Don't know how they managed to get there without anyone seeing them, but apparently they did. Several smaller ships have broken off from the main ship and are descending as we speak. Still determining their target, but they look like they're heading for the UK."

People were still streaming in to the room and heading to various workstations, bringing them online and reaching out electronically for their feeds from satellites, ground arrays, and government agencies all over the world. Rose paced from one to the next for several minutes as information continued to stream in. She was just about to contact Corin telepathically (handy thing, that Time Lord life bond) when Hawkins sang out.

"They're landing!"

"Confirmed! All six craft have landed, approximately 60 miles north of here – oh my god."

"What?" Rose whirled on the speaker, a steady, middle-aged woman manning one of the comms stations, a long-time friend of hers.

She looked up at Rose, concern and fear etched on her face. "They've landed at Cambridge. Right in the heart of the University."

Less than a mile from both Corin and Donna.


	3. Invasion

**Invasion**

_As the Archivist returned to his duties, the visitor carefully opened the ancient leather-bound volume, slowly turning a few pages at random. The hand-written words had been painstakingly translated, page by page – English on one side, SenSaru'i on the facing page. He looked closely at the writing; yes, both had been inked by the same hand._

_He went back to the beginning of the book, glancing at the dedication page – and then did a classic double-take, laughing out loud before he could stop himself. Still smiling, he settled back in his chair, trying to find a comfortable position, turned to the first page, and began reading._

_'You will wonder why I am writing this. It is because I believe in Truth – that there is such a thing, and that it is important that it is known. So many half-truths and outright lies about those first days have become enshrined in myth, and so believed to be Truth, that I feel I MUST attempt to set the record straight. To remain silent would be a lie. Worse, it would let the lies impugning the honor of good men and women stand – and that is the worst lie of all.'_

_^..^_

Professor Gallifrey was perched on the front of his desk at one side of the lectern stage, quietly helping one student while the rest of the class began tackling the problem he'd set them on the board, when Rose's internal voice broke in. *_Corin?*_ The fact that she'd interrupted a class said as much as her tone did that something was up – he could practically hear the adrenaline.

_*What is it, love?*_ he replied.

Just then the alarms sounded. *_Hold on. Lockdown drill.* _ Without a word aloud, he quickly stood and waved his hands out to both sides, and his students sprang into action. Two nearest each door shot the bolt and pulled the shade over the small inset window, while one at the end of each row on the other side checked that each of the large windows lining that side of the lecture hall was locked, and lowered and closed the shades. Before an observer could count to thirty, every student would be back in his seat, books stowed, mobiles out and turned on Silent, quietly watching him and the clock over his head.

He spared them an approving smile for their smooth efficiency before returning his attention to Rose. While he abhorred the reason, he couldn't argue with the necessity for the lockdown drills, and was determined that should a deranged gunman strike Cambridge, none of _his_ students would be caught in the crossfire. As a result, he drilled each of his classes several times at the beginning of each semester – and invariably had the best marks whenever the drills were observed and graded by the campus police.

Corin suddenly realized what Rose had been telling him. *_It's not a drill! You've got alien spacecraft landing in your back yard!*_

A beat, while the shock ran quickly through him. *_Say that again?*_

She chuckled, a flow of cool peppermint in his mind. *_Time to get your alien arse in gear, _Doctor_. One large mothership is in orbit overhead, and we're reading six smaller ships just landing in and around Cambridge. Small being relative, of course. Hold on, we're getting finer details now.*_ He pictured her in the Control Room at Torchwood, peering up at the huge viewscreen on the wall. He felt a shock go through her mind to his, but before he could speak, she asked, *_Corin? What building are you in?*_

_*Brookings Hall.*_

She quickly scanned the screen. *_OK, there's none near you. But... Corin, there's one landing on Sara Commons.*_ He didn't need her to tell him the significance of that. Sara Commons was the central green within the School of Medicine.

Where Donna was right now sitting in class.

_*I'm on my way.*_ He returned his attention to his surroundings, looking over the class. Their faces were just showing the realization that the alarms hadn't stopped – this wasn't a drill.

"We've got visitors, but nothing's near here – for now," he announced to the class, not caring about the rumors that his odd display of 'foreknowledge' would inevitably start. "Stay in lockdown till you get the all clear, but you can turn on the telly to see what's happening. But _stay here._ Anybody leaving this room to play hero or eyewitness: don't bother coming back; I'll personally expel you. Leroy, you're in charge," he added to his teaching assistant.

He strode quickly from the lecture hall, pausing outside the door just long enough to hear the deadbolt shot home again behind him, then turned and half-ran down the corridor to the outer doors. Once he hit the stairs outside, though, he took off his brakes and RAN northward, towards Sara Commons with its new, (possibly) dreadful tenant.

He could hear numerous sirens coming from all over the city, converging on several spots from the sounds of them. And then he heard the rumble of starship engines come creeping under and then over all other noise. He stopped for a moment to listen intently. _Was that...? No._ He didn't recognize the aural signature – not that that meant a whole lot. He took off again. There was another one closer, a few blocks to his left, but he ignored it. His daughter came first.

The streets and sidewalks were filling fast with people running and cars screeching this way and that, and he began having to dodge and weave, holding back his frustration. He made it up to the Commons before the police began setting up barricades, just slipping through the line of uniforms. There he came to a screeching halt, staring at the hulk now resting on the grass.

"Hulk" was definitely the operative word. Inexperienced humans might simply see an impressively massive pile of alien metal, but his eyes picked out battle scars and broken attachments. Vaguely wedge-shaped, it sat, a bit crookedly, on three legs extending out and down from the base, with a wide ramp leading from the belly to the ground. Corin took that in quickly and dismissed it as unfamiliar, then focused in on the aliens themselves, several of whom were standing in a double line between the ramp and the nearest building – Sheffield Hall, from which was issuing a steady stream of loud bangs and human screams. The situation had started badly for inter-galactic peace, and was already deteriorating. Several people were stretched out on the ground, unconscious or dead, in the open area between the ship and the crowd, which was now holding back well away from the aliens even as it kept swelling from the rear.

_*Rose? I'm there. I don't recognize the ship. Hold on, let me get closer to them.*_ He worked his way quickly through the growing crowd, and spotted a TV crew already on the scene to his right. He sent her the station ID on the side of the satellite van so she could snag the video they were sending out, then returned his attention to the aliens.

_*Bipedal. Two arms. One head. About two meters tall._ _Standard for spacefaring species*._ Corin peered closer while building a quick mental inventory as he pushed through the crowd, trying to see their faces. *_Grey skin, kind of rubbery-looking. Flat faces. No visible hair. Wide, lipless mouths.*_ He thought furiously, mentally thumbing through his vast mental rolodex – and back again, before he gave up. *_I don't recognize them at all.*_

_*Damn.*_ came her reply. A species he knew, even if they didn't know the Doctor in this alternate universe, would have been a big plus.

*_Are you getting that video feed?*_

_*Yes, we just snagged it. Corin... answer your mobile, it's me. We need audio.*_

He dug his mobile out of his pocket and thumbed the button without looking. "Recording?" he asked.

"Yes."

"OK. I'm going in." He dropped the phone back into his jacket pocket to empty his hands and began walking carefully towards the line. The leader – at least it looked rather in charge, standing off to one side – was barking orders into a comlink, and Corin strained his ears to hear the words.

"Ssa tesstanssini eftaklit! Beki ini ssepindu!" The S's were elongated and hissed, and Corin realized the alien had gill slits on his neck that were creating the effect. The words themselves, though, were nonsense. *_Damn, I don't know that language, either. I've never run into these guys before. They may not have an equivalent in the other universe._*

The leader turned slightly and saw him approaching, and held up his hand in an obvious gesture: Stay back! Corin raised both his hands, holding them out to show he wasn't armed – he didn't like the looks of the weapon the alien was clutching, though he wasn't sure what type it was. He kept moving forward, slowly, calling out clearly, "I'm no threat! Please, stop! Tell me what you want! I can help you!" Although this didn't look like a friendly group, it was usually best to treat newcomers that way and give them the chance.

The alien didn't respond with anything that looked like understanding, so they apparently had no universal translator. Corin repeated the greeting in several different intergalactic languages, hoping to hit on something familiar to the other. No luck. The closer he came, the more agitated the leader became, continuing to motion him back and repeating the same alien phrase, louder each time. "Tassmubi! Etssa! Etssa!" When he brought his weapon up from his side and pointed it at Corin, the latter stopped walking, though he didn't stop talking, continuing to try different languages, alternated with English, in what he hoped was a calm – and calming – voice.

Suddenly a new hubbub broke out on his right, and both he and the alien leader swiveled their heads to see a group of students pushed out the Hall's front door and herded towards the bottom of the ramp. Cracks of what sounded like forcewhips rang out above the cries and screams of the kids, while answering yells and screams echoed from the crowd at the edges of the Commons. The leader whirled and fired a shot – some kind of energy bolt – up into the air to quell the noise.

About fifty or so students had been herded past – and more evidently behind them, judging from the noise from the Hall – as Corin shifted his attention back to the leader and stepped forward again, determined to get close enough to try to talk to him and get hold of the situation. The leader saw him move and yelled at him again, training his gun straight back at Corin. He stopped once more and took a deep breath to try again – and the leader fired, out of patience. The energy bolt hit his chest and blew him back several feet, stunning him but not killing him outright. As he blacked out, Rose's mental scream ringing in his mind, the last second of vision before the shot replayed again – a headful of long auburn hair framing wide, shocked blue eyes and an open, crying mouth stood out in high relief from the rest of the line of students running into the ship.

Donna.


	4. SenSaru Rising

**SenSaru Rising**

_'It's difficult now, after six decades,' the ancient journal continued, 'to reach back for those first impressions. They've been overlaid so completely by everything that came after. And which is more important, after all: the enemy one seemed at first sighting, or the true and loyal friend they proved to be over time? Or again, which should be recorded in an accurate history: the staunch initial supporter, or the tunnel snake they turned into, boring through the heart of our great endeavor and attempting to destroy it from within?_

_'The answers are obvious._

_'And yet... those first impressions DO matter, because they colored so much of what happened after, for such a long time. Even today, the repercussions continue. So I shall strive again to reach back, and tell this story true.'_

^..^

SesTok's patience was wearing very thin, and every one of his subordinates knew it. The situation at home was becoming more desperate by the day; if a solution was not found soon, all of SenSaru'a would be in ashes, no one left to sing the Great Song to Marusska Moon.

Worst of all, he couldn't squash his own doubts, that they were going about this all wrong. They had tried this four times already – four! – with disastrous results. How many more times would the Council of Elders insist on this folly? _They'll put us all under the sea before they're done. Council of Elders my aching left fin. Council of Children, more like. Why, Marusska, did you take our Wisest Ones first?_

Still, he had no better answer to give, not then. _I'll do this once more, just once. If it fails as the others did, I will stand up to the Council and demand they reconsider, and try something else. Even if it means my command. I'll soon have no-one to command, anyway, on the present course._

He'd taken the highly unusual step for a ship's Commander of going down with the landing party and personally overseeing the operation. Their sensors had picked up the obvious traces of nuclear fission power from various points on the planet from far out in the system, but hadn't noticed the more subtle trace of fusion reactions until they'd reached orbit. Quickly realizing that those enjoying for the far more advanced fusion power would likely be those responsible for its creation, and therefore more advanced themselves, SesTok had made the snap decision to concentrate their harvesting there: the better the stock, the better the results. One such plant stood out on their sensors as the oldest, from the concentration of elion particles surrounding it – and further sweeps revealed large clusters of life forms conveniently sequestered inside numerous groupings of evidently communal structures scattered closely around that plant: easy pickings for a quick grab.

Of course they'd quickly garnered mass attention when they'd landed, groups of the locals surrounding each ship and making their hideous noises. A number of individuals had tried to stop them; he'd given orders to stun them all rather than kill them – no need to waste life unnecessarily, even of such low life forms. One of the beings in particular was persistent, walking out of the crowd and speaking urgently to him, showing its empty appendages in an obvious attempt to parley. SesTok had regretted stunning it; it had seemed almost intelligent. Had the situation been slightly different, he might have herded it inside the ship with the rest of their catch to study later, but there was too much going on at that second, and SesTok had needed to maintain control. So he stunned it and left it on the short plants between the structures.

Their sweep finished, his men came barreling back out of the target structure. They'd gathered quite a catch from this one alone, and SesTok ordered them back into the ship, sending the same order out to the other five landers. The final counts came in as the six ships ascended, and he smiled. Plenty to choose from.

"Take six from this lander for processing and identification," he ordered the medical crew as they docked. "No need to shuffle them all on and off. Once you've found the markers, move only the females to the holding pens, then we'll send the males back down and gather more females."

"Why not just space the males?" his second, JanDel, wanted to know.

"Take too long. Faster this way," he replied with a shrug. He knew his crew considered him too soft, sometimes; no need to give them any more fodder for their talk. His order to stun rather than kill had already been controversial enough.

He walked slowly down to the cargo bay of the lander and stood at the observation port overlooking it, staring down into the herd. They were clustered in a number of groups, taking comfort from each other in their frightening circumstances. Several – probably males – were lined up in front of the doors in an obvious attempt to protect their females; a useless gesture as they had no weapons. The six, grabbed at random from the closest bunches to the door, had already been taken for examination.

SesTok tapped the viewglass, increasing the magnification, to take a closer look at these new animals. They had an interesting variety of fur on the tops of their heads, all different colors, and of wildly different lengths. He noticed one animal standing by itself, its blue eyes locked on the doors, whose very long fur, hanging down far past its shoulders, was of an intriguing reddish color. Scanning quickly, he didn't notice any others with this same color, and wondered if it were a mark of some prestige – or pariahship; either one would explain the several lengths of space being given it by the others. He turned back to this one, studying it closer. That color was interesting – exactly the same shade as the baby folismats he'd played with as a youngling. Though hopefully with fewer – and duller – teeth, he reflected, absently rubbing the tiny scars that still remained on his fingers from those baby teeth.

The chief medical officer's voice came over the comlink. "We've identified the genders, Commander. Two of the first six were females – and they have the marker!"

"Good. Return the four males to the lander, and send the gender data to all scanners. Begin sorting out the rest immediately." He breathed a silent sigh of relief. _They have the marker. Good. So, the seer was correct – this time. Maybe the Council was right, after all – maybe this _is_ the way._

He watched as several of his crew entered the bay below him, scanners out. The line of animals reacted bravely, attempting to intimidate the crew, but to no avail. As soon as the scanners revealed the results – SesTok had been right, they were males – the crew waved them back with their stunners. It only took a single shot, stunning just one of them, for the rest to give way, and the crew began making its way through the crowd, methodically scanning each animal. Each female was shoved towards the door, where more of his crew waited, while the males were sent to one side of the bay, out of the way.

When the sorting was done, the crew returned to the door, and began connecting the females to each other with forceropes, hand to hand, then they took them twelve at a time out towards the holding pens on the next level down. Just then, SesTok noticed that the reddish one he'd been watching earlier was with the females. On impulse, he thumbed his comlink and got the crew chief below him, pointing out the female and ordering the chief to take her to his own cabin.

He wanted a closer inspection of this, the salvation of the SenSaru.


	5. Teeth and Hair

**Teeth and Hair**

_'I think it will not be easy for you who will read these words to truly comprehend the immense hurdles we faced at the time, of simply seeing past the very _otherness _of each species to the individual within, and learning to value and respect that individual. It is a hurdle our forebears had faced many, many times before, with members of different groups of our own people – how much more daunting the task with an entirely new species! When every single tiny bit of anatomy and psychology and history and culture and everything else that makes a people is incomprehensibly... _alien_._

_But when the need is desperate enough, the will to do the impossible shall always be found.'_

^..^

When SesTok arrived at his cabin door some time later, having detoured to the command pod to locate the next targets (as the first was by now most likely guarded too well for an easy second strike), he found the reddish female sitting huddled on the deck, back against the grease-smeared corridor wall with her appendages seemingly wrapped around each other. She was being guarded by one of the crew, a young striker who looked sullen and bored with the duty. SesTok grunted leave and the striker gave a hasty salute and almost ran towards crew country and dinner, leaving his commander staring down at the female.

She'd been gazing at the metal deck, but turned her head to watch the striker leave, then stared back up at SesTok with those surprising blue eyes. Now that he saw them clearly, they were actually blue, not grey like Sensaru'i eyes. Paired with that long reddish head fur, they made an arresting combination.

He reached a hand out to touch that fur – and found it slapped away by the female. He hissed through his gill slits in surprise, then grinned down at her. "Feisty, are you? Good." He passed his hand over the sensor on the wall, sliding his cabin door open, and stepped back a pace, waving the female inside. She'd flinched away from the doorway beside her, peering briefly into the dim space beyond before looking back at him. He gestured again, and she finally rose up on both feet and carefully walked inside, immediately stepping to one side to put her back to a wall and watch him come inside behind her.

Donna had swung from terror during the raid to wild, shocked grief at seeing her father shot down in front of her, melting quickly into rage – which settled during the wait in the cargo bay into a fierce determination to survive. She'd been raised on her parent's stories of adventures beyond the stars (even though her older brother claimed privately not to believe them), had seen alien artifacts aplenty at her mother's Institute, and remembered vividly the day her unearthly younger brother had disappeared, catching glimpses of the wooden blue box in the front hall, her father's 'twin', and her 'cousin', Jenny; after all that, the idea of being captured by aliens wasn't nearly as paralyzingly shocking to her as it apparently was to her fellow captives. She could have told the guys that their pitiful show of resistance would be futile – but they wouldn't have listened to her, anyway; her reputation as a brainy freak ensured that. _They probably think I'm a traitor now, too, since these space sharks pulled me out alone. _The kids had begun calling their captors that due to their slick grey skin and multiple rows of sharp teeth during the ride – apparently up to a mother ship of some kind – and it had stuck in her brain, too.

She hadn't gotten a very good look at this one, who seemed to be in charge of her now, out in the hall, but as the lights came up in the small, cluttered compartment and he came in behind her, she stiffened and hissed. "You!" She might not be able to pick an individual grunt out of a police lineup, but she was absolutely certain this was the shark that had shot her father shortly before – the shock of witnessing it had emblazoned his image on her brain cells indelibly.

SesTok, in the act of shrugging off his jacket, heard the female hiss and glanced sharply at her. She had pushed off the wall and stalked the three steps to him – stopping just out of reach – and was continuing to spit and growl in her primitive language. If the facial expressions of these animals were anything analogous to SenSaru, she was one angry little female. Glancing at her dull teeth and nails, though, he decided his skin wasn't in any immediate danger of piercing, and he grinned at her discomfort.

Suddenly she reached behind her and pulled something out of a rear pouch in her clothing. He tensed for a moment, then realized it wasn't a weapon, but a small folded skin pouch. She opened it up with visibly trembling hands, pulled out a flat square of some material and shoved it at his face. Curious now, he took it from her and peered closely; it proved to be a two-dimensional image of an animal like herself. He shrugged and tried to give it back to her, but she wouldn't take it, continuing to mewl while looking increasingly upset.

"You killed my father, you son of a bitch! You _killed_ him!" Donna knew he didn't understand her, but she couldn't seem to get past the brute fact that this... _animal... _was standing in front of her as though nothing had happened, when he'd just casually cut down the most important person in her life.

He took another close look at the picture, and suddenly recognized it as possibly the animal he'd regretfully stunned during the operation below - something about the shape of the face and the unruly head fur seemed familiar. "This one is known to you?" Of course, she didn't understand him. "You're acting like it's dead, little she-thing." He gill-snorted in amusement, then an idea struck him. He turned to the computer terminal on the wall and called up the broadcasts from the planet below that he'd been entertaining himself watching on the ride up, scrolling quickly until he found what he wanted.

He turned and motioned Donna towards the screen, saying something that sounded like "So-day!" She stalked over and looked, seeing a news report from the scene. She watched just long enough to see Dad drop and whirled on the shark. "I don't need to _see_ it again! I saw it already – I _know_ what you did!" He motioned her back to the screen again, repeating "So-day!", a bit louder. She looked back unwillingly – just in time to catch another shot of Dad, sitting up at the back of an ambulance, being checked out by medics.

She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as relief flooded through her. "He's alive. He's alive," she whispered. She looked back at her captor, eyes wide, and he grinned at her – and suddenly she saw it as a grin, rather than simply a baring of the those horrific teeth.

Donna was almost physically staggered. Suddenly she wasn't facing a heartless, indiscriminate killer, but she couldn't process what had taken the brute's place. They stared at each other for several long minutes, but his eyes kept sliding sideways to her hair. Glancing up, she realized he had none, and couldn't remember seeing any on any of the others, either. He reached a tentative hand out, stopping it a few inches away from her head and looking straight into her eyes. Was he actually asking for permission this time? She forced her hands down from her mouth to her sides again and nodded.

_So, did that peculiar head movement mean yes?_ _Well, she hasn't knocked my hand away again, so take it as that._ He reached the rest of the way and lightly touched her head fur, picking up a strand and drawing it through his fingers.

Her mouth twitched. "Hair."

He froze, the lock of fur still in his light grip, and looked at her eyes again.

"Hair," she repeated, drawing it out and enunciating clearly.

"Hhhh-air," he did his best to mimic her, including the funny breathy sound at the beginning.

They stared at each other for a minute, not sure whether to grin or not. He dropped her hair and stepped back a pace. "Hhhair," he repeated, for no good reason.

_One word down, ten thousand to go,_ thought Donna. _Speaking of which..._ She pointed to herself and said, "Donna."

SesTok felt his gill slits go wide with surprise. _Well, I suppose it's natural they have names._ "Don-Nah!" Then, feeling foolish for some reason he couldn't define, he pointed to his own chest. "SesTok."

She took a deep breath. It had a name. "SesTok," she repeated, pointing at him to show she understood it was his name. Then, "Donna, SesTok," pointing at each in turn to drive it home. _Donna Marie Gallifrey, what are you doing_? she asked herself. _I'm surviving,_ came the grim reply. _'In a long-term hostage situation, your chances of survival increase if you can make a genuine personal connection with your captor'_ she mentally quoted the university's Safety Manual. _Thank you, Dad, for making me actually read it._

He stared at her a moment longer, surprise at her understanding and repeating his name flaring his gill slits again. _I wonder how much they can be taught._ A thought struck him, and he turned back to the wall next to the screen, opening one of the many small doors and pulling out some ration bars. He pulled the wrapper off one of them and held it out to her. "Food."

She took it from him, hesitantly. "Surima?" she tried the word. He tossed his head up and back to his right, catching her attention from the bar. She lowered her hand and looked at him, speculatively, then grinned and tried something new, testing. She pointed to herself and said, "SesTok?"

_And here I thought she was smart._ "Baht!" he spat out, testy, jerking his shoulders back. He reached for the bar, but she snatched it back, then held her other hand out, stopping him. This time she pointed at him. "SesTok." A statement, not a question.

He tossed his head again, pointing to himself. "Sah! Chano SesTok."

She grinned hugely now, catching his attention fully. "You think I'm thick, I know. But we just made progress. Watch." Pointing at him, tossing her head the way he had: "Sah." At herself, nodding, "Yes." She repeated it a couple more times, till he caught on.

"Ah, so that's it. Your 'yesss' means my 'sah'." He copied her nod, too, jerkily, and was rewarded by her grin. Then she went through "Baht" and "No", with shoulder jerks and head shakes; this time he got it immediately.

They stood grinning at each other for several seconds before he pointed again at the ration bar in her hand. "Surima." He tore open another one and took a bite to demonstrate.

Donna raised the bar in her hand and took a cautious sniff. Looking like a miniature hay bale, of tiny compressed green plants, with small red and yellow chunks, it smelled like... _Cheesy seaweed? Oi. OK, in the name of intergalactic peace. I just hope I never find out what's actually in it._ She took a cautious nibble, finding it tasted pretty much like it smelled, with a bit of fruitiness – coming from the chunks, she supposed.

He was waiting for a reaction. "Surima? Food?" she tried.

He opened his mouth to try her word, when suddenly they were interrupted by JanDel's voice, coming from the screen. "Commander!"

SesTok scowled, stamping over to punch the button a bit harder than necessary. "What is it?"

"The animals below are trying to contact us! They are calling on our frequency, even have visual. And, Commander..." He could hear JanDel swallow nervously as he hesitated.

"What? Speak!"

"They're speaking in SenSaru'i!"


	6. The Traveler

**The Traveler**

_'Communication, communication, communication. The word itself doesn't translate easily into SenSaru'i, as you can see. One has to start small, and build slowly._

_Or, rather, one cannot build at all. It takes two, at least, as does everything worthwhile._

_Much easier to do when you don't have a warship looming overhead, of course.'_

^..^

Corin walked swiftly into the Control Room at Torchwood, and Rose immediately ran into his arms. They held each other tightly for a long, long moment, taking comfort in the physical connection, even though they'd been in constant telepathic contact since he'd woken from the stun blast. He'd pulled away from the medics as soon as an Army helicopter had landed, jumping in past startled soldiers just as the orders to convey him to London had come in over the radio – Rose had a long reach when she needed it.

He glanced around the large room, seeing the military and government liaisons scattered about – easily marked by their uniforms or suits, as opposed to the casual jeans and lab coats worn by the Torchwood staff. Downing Street had wasted no time implementing the Protocols, then. He grinned briefly down at his bondmate, arguably the most important person on the planet at that moment.

She grinned back, catching his thought, then dropped her arms and swung back to the action. "Stuart? Any luck with that translator yet?" A fifty-ish lab-becoated man with greying dreadlocks hunched over a console at one side of the room simply shook his head, continuing to frantically type commands into his computer.

Corin looked up at the huge viewscreen covering the entire wall at the front of the room. Much of it was devoted to several maps and diagrams, tracking the mother ship's orbit as well as the landers' trajectories. In the center, however, was a large image of one of the aliens, barking out commands in their language, apparently communicating with the landing craft. Corin concentrated on the speech issuing from the speakers for a moment, frustrated at the continuing silence from his vast memory. _Fat lot of good all those thousands of languages I used to know are doing me now._

Movement on the trajectory diagrams caught his eye. "What's going on?" he asked Rose.

"They're coming back down, but not back to Cambridge. They're scattering and heading for different places around the globe, apparently. We haven't pinpointed them yet."

Corin swore. More humans were about to be kidnapped, and he was helpless to stop it, just as he'd been helpless to keep Donna safe. Rose caught his hand and squeezed it, then turned away to assist General Myers, who was busy trying to contact and coordinate operations with the military leaders of the countries which were the apparent next targets.

Over the next hour, they frantically worked together to mount some kind of defense, as reports from the six landing sites came in. Three were successfully defended; the ships took off again from sites in Germany, Canada, and the US without any new hostages after, astonishingly, releasing some of the captives taken from Cambridge. It wasn't until the third time that happened that somebody happened to notice that all the returnees were males. A fourth, unfortunately, wasn't prepared, and more girls disappeared into the skies from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma in Mexico City. The aliens had apparently learned to be more selective, and sorted out the sexes before driving the coeds into the ship.

They were waiting for the next site to report in – the lander was heading towards Lahore, Pakistan – when someone near the front let out a cheer. "Thank you, Stuart!"

Dreads looked up, confused. "What? The translator's not working yet!"

"But the sharks are speaking English now!"

Everyone fell silent and listened, astonished, as they registered that the words now emanating from the speakers were, indeed, the king's English.

Rose and Corin turned to stare at each other, the same thought in both their minds. *_No, they're not.*_ And if Stuart's not-yet-operational translator program wasn't the reason, then...

Then there must be a TARDIS nearby, broadcasting translations telepathically into everyone's mind.

They whirled in unison, scanning the perimeter of the room. And there, leaning casually against the back wall, grinning, was a stranger. Slightly shorter than Corin, he looked to be in his late thirties, with expressive brown eyes and mid-length curly brown hair.

He wasn't Corin's mirror image. It wasn't the Doctor - at least, not the face they knew. Which meant...

Rose took a deep, shuddering breath and stepped hesitantly forward. "Joshua?" she breathed through prickling tears.

The stranger's grin faltered, as his own eyes grew damp. He took his own deep breath, then said, "Got any hot cocoa on, Mum?"

And that was all it took. All three of them were suddenly in each other's arms, weeping, as Rose and Corin's prodigal son came home.

^..^

Surprisingly, Rose was the first to be coherent again. "How long have you been gone?" she asked, tenderly holding his face between her hands, trying to gauge how old he looked.

"A very long time. I've been in the other universe for over six decades, personal time."

"And you don't look a day over two hundred," Corin quipped, covering the jolt he'd felt at the realization that his son truly was, now, a full Time Lord. Josh grinned at him, but Corin turned serious. "Your being here right now isn't a coincidence, is it?"

Josh matched his change of tone. "No. I actually broke through a very_, very_ long way into the future, and stopped off partway back to read your biographies to find a good time for a visit. The very first sentence was about this incident, in which you," and his voice took on a mock-news announcer timbre, "almost single-handedly staved off an alien invasion, with the help of a mysterious stranger known only as The Traveler." He grinned. "That's me. I'm the Traveler; have been for a very long time."

Rose gasped, slowly, her eyes misting again at this further proof: a Time Lord-style public name, like the Doctor had worn for centuries. He smiled down at her (_When did he get so tall?_ she wondered), saying, "But of course you can still call me Joshua. It's my family name," referring to the names Time Lord parents had given their children at birth, that were thereafter only used by close family members, rather than their later-discovered, forever-kept-secret True Names.

Corin managed to keep his mind on business. "And did it say how we manage to accomplish this miracle?"

Josh gave him a level look. "Not you." He turned to Rose. "_You._" He paused and grinned again. "Sixty seconds?"

Rose nodded. That had always been their family's not-so-secret code for 'talk fast, buster'.

"These are the SenSaru."

Corin broke in. "I don't recognize them at all."

"Think Selani."

Corin gasped at the new name, dredging it out of deep memory with an almost physical effort. "Selani... I never knew them. They went extinct!"

Josh nodded. "And the SenSaru are about to. Their planet, SenSaru'a, is _dying_, poisoned by their own industry. They're down to only a few thousand individuals left. And the first to die were their women. Every last one. This," he waved his hand at the viewscreen, "is their attempt at repopulation."

Rose gasped. "That's why they're taking only females!"

He nodded. "And the truly, ridiculously tragic thing is that this is their _fifth_ attempt. _Four_ times before now, they've raided other planets, other species, taking shiploads of females back to their planet, only to watch them die within a few weeks from the same poison."

Rose gasped, clutching her son's shirt in horror. "Josh! They've got _Donna!"_

He took both her hands in his. "I know, Mum. I know. It's OK. I promise you, she's all right. She'll be OK."

She closed her eyes tight for a moment, forcing herself to breathe. She got herself back in control in a moment, accepting his reassurances; she had no choice. "OK. But why me?"

"That's the ironic part of the story. Before this tragedy came on, their society was _very_ heavily matriarchal. The men had the brawn, the women had the brains – quite literally; they were said to be easily twice as intelligent as the men. These..." he waved again at the screen, dismissively this time, "these are boys out of school, trying desperately to solve a problem they don't even begin to understand."

He turned back to her. "Your job, then, is this. First you have to get them to see you, and by extension their captives, as _people_, individuals with rights and dignity, and as _women_ worthy of the respect they used to pay their own, rather than _breeding stock._" He smiled again, surprising her. "That's where Donna comes in. She's up there already, laying the ground work. You just need to get their attention and ram the message home. Once you've done that, you can suggest the true, ultimate solution, that will benefit both species."

"And what's that?"

He shook his head. "First things first."

^..^

A few minutes later, Rose was ready. Captain Bartok, an Army communications specialist, had been concentrating fiercely on wringing every drop of intelligence he could from the now-understandable SenSaru broadcasts, and now gave her a quick, efficient briefing. "The one on screen is named JanDel, rank Sub-Commander. They've referenced a Commander SesTok several times; I believe that would be the captain of the ship. JanDel has the landers that were repulsed in low orbit, waiting new targets, while the last two ships land."

Brennan, Rose's long-time Assistant Director, took over with the current situation on the ground. "The fifth ship just landed in Lahore, as we suspected, but the Pakistani's are pushing them back. No hostages were unloaded there, we think the defenders may have hit them too fast. The last ship is headed to Beijing, expected landing in about forty minutes. The Chinese have been alerted and have military units headed to their universities."

Doctor Greene broke in. "We've analyzed the pattern. They're landing at universities closest to nuclear fusion power plants; evidently their sensors can tell them which buildings contain large concentrations of humans, and the uni's are the best for that, day or night. The Beijing University of Technology has their own fusion reactor; that's their next target if the pattern holds. We've sent that info to the Chinese, so they should be ready for them."

General Myers had the anchor position. "I've just finished a conference call with the G8 leaders and their military heads, giving them the latest intel," he nodded towards the Traveler, indicating the inclusion of what he'd told them. "They have unanimously agreed to give you provisional charter for the next phase of operations, contacting the aliens and negotiating for the release of the hostages. Military responses are temporarily on hold, pending the outcome."

Corin, standing with Joshua at the back of the room, was almost physically struck by the magnitude of the situation, and the irony of his current backbencher position after centuries of taking the lead. He was in awe, once again, of his magnificent, brilliant life's partner. Catching her eye, he grinned. _*Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth.*_ he thought at her.

She fought down a smile, and dredged up her best mental cockney: _*Shut it.*_

Then she waved everyone back, turned to the screen and the camera, and took a deep breath. "Patch me through."


	7. Negotiations

**Negotiations**

_'One step forward, two steps back. Progress was ever thus, throughout history – and we were no different.'_

^..^

Gill slits wide in hissing surprise, SesTok turned to gaze at the female, DonNah. "They are transmitting in SenSaru'i? But you don't understand me now..." No spark of comprehension appeared on her face. He shrugged. "I'm on my way," he told JanDel and shut off the comm.

He picked his jacket up off the bunk and slid it back on as he walked towards the door. On reaching it, though, he turned back and looked at DonNah again where she remained near the viewscreen, then decided. "You come, too." He motioned her to his side, repeating both words and gesture when she hesitated. Once she'd come up to him, he pointed emphatically at the deck at his side and slightly behind him. "Stay _right there_ next to me."

Donna didn't understand the words, of course, but the meaning was clear. "Yeah, I get it. _Heel._"

He looked sharply at her a moment longer, seeing if she seemed to understand, and suddenly went back into echo mode: "Hhhh-eel."

Startled, she couldn't help it; she snorted, then giggled through the hand that flew to her mouth. He stared again, then began a peculiar huffing through his gill slits, a grin trying to claim his lipless mouth. When she realized that must be his equivalent of her giggles, she laughed even harder, and they walked out the door feeling almost friendly.

Much, much later, each of them realized separately that this was the moment they had begun thinking of the other as a person.

^..^

SesTok carefully wiped all amusement from his face before he stalked into the command pod. The main overhead comm screen was blank, while the smaller ones around the perimeter showed only the usual readouts. "Report!" he hissed at JanDel, who scuttled off the Commander's dais out of his way.

"There were several attempts since our arrival to speak with us on our frequency, but we ignored them all, of course – none of them were in SenSaru'i. Suddenly another broke through, with one of them speaking our language, demanding to speak with you – the animal even knew your name. I cannot explain this, Commander." JanDel was standing as far as he could out of his superior's reach without being insubordinate, just in case.

Donna had stopped just inside the door as it swished closed behind her; she wasn't brave enough to cross the open space to the center. She peered cautiously around, trying to look without being obvious, trying to memorize it as well as she could; any information might be useful to her parents. (She ruthlessly quashed the automatic _if I ever see them again_.) The pod was round, about twenty-five feet across, with four small entrances spaced equidistantly, and very dark; every surface was black. A reflected light source circling the center of the domed ceiling did little to augment the lights coming from the buttons, switches and screens on every panel. As far as she could tell, about a dozen sharks were manning the stations around the perimeter, sitting on fixed cube seats in the donut-shaped well. An open platform one step up ran behind them, while the center was raised yet another step – obviously the commander's place. It had its own array of small panels in a semi-circular, waist-high railing. No chair for this captain; a SenSaru ship's commander evidently stood his duty. Large screens lined the walls above the workstations, possibly (she peered closely at the nearest one) repeating the small individual displays below them, and a single transparent sheet was hanging in "front" of the commander's dais.

SesTok waved at the overhead screen. "Why is it blank? Are they no longer transmitting?"

JanDel swallowed hard. "I... turned it off. It was making – the men nervous, Commander. It's still on the small screen, though," bobbing his head at the center of the Commander's railing.

SesTok turned and started to step up to the dais, just as the door behind Donna swished open again, admitting another crew member who shoved her to one side, knocking her down. SesTok whirled back and growled at the interloper, freezing him in his tracks. "Help her up," he spit the words out, furious – why, he wasn't sure. But he wasn't going to back down now, in front of his crew.

Stunned, the crew member looked around, seeming to only then see the animal his commander had brought into the pod. He looked back at SesTok, confused – but received another growl for his troubles. Evidently deciding that playing along with his commander's game was the better part of discretion, he reached out and grabbed the animal's arm, hauling it back up to its feet. Then, glancing at SesTok for permission, he continued over to his workstation.

Donna wasn't sure which had startled her more, being knocked down or getting unceremoniously pulled back up. Neither one was helping her equilibrium. She stared at SesTok, who peered back, seeming to be asking wordlessly if she was OK. She nodded, briefly brushing down her clothes (and her nerves). After another second, he accepted the "yesss" and turned away again.

Shaking the encounter off his shoulders, SesTok stepped up onto the dais, peering at the comm screen in the railing. Framed within it was the head and upper half of one of DonNah's species, this one with pale yellowish head fur (_hhair_, he corrected himself). It appeared to be waiting, half-turned away as if listening to another beside it; but it swiveled back to face him squarely as he stepped into view of the camera.

"Here stands Commander SesTok, of the SenSaru Galactic Armada. Who sounds my name?" He wasn't sure why he'd slipped into formal language, but it seemed oddly appropriate.

"Commander." The yellow-haired one dipped its head. (_I wish I could tell their genders apart,_ he thought fleetingly.) "I am Rose Gallifrey. I've been appointed - "

That was as far as she got. "_Mum?_" Donna gasped as the familiar voice came over the speakers, then froze as everyone in the command pod turned to stare at her.

"Donna?" Rose cried, while SesTok whirled around. "Are you all right?" She couldn't see anything past the alien on the screen; the camera was tight-focused on him.

SesTok motioned for Donna to come forward, and she forced her legs to carry her up to stand beside him. She took a shuddering breath, _why am I shaking NOW?_, and replied, "Yeah. I'm OK."

SesTok was almost beside himself with outraged bewilderment. "You DO speak SenSaru'i? How is this?"

Donna turned to him, confused, "But you're speaking English now!"

"No, Commander," Rose broke in, pulling her eyes from her daughter with effort. "We have an automatic translator here, which is making it seem to you as if we are speaking your language, while to us it appears that you are speaking ours."

SesTok looked from DonNah to the screen and back. "Interesting." He let DonNah stay where she was, and turned to face the screen full, getting back to business. "Why do you sound my name?"

Rose picked up on the change in his tone, and matched it, keeping her eyes on him. "To call upon you to release your hostages, and return my daughters to me." _Matriarchal society. He needs to see me as a mother figure._

"This I cannot do. We have need of them."

"And your _need_ supersedes their _rights_? I think not."

"They will have honored positions in our world."

"How can unwilling captives be honored, when their rights to make their own decisions have been removed?" _I saw that sidestep, buster._

"I care not for the rights of any individual, when our entire world is at risk. My people are _dying._"

"Your _world_ is dying, Commander. Yes, I know of your situation. Your planet is poisoned, and it is killing your people. Soon there will be no SenSaru left. This hostage-taking is pointless. You condemn my daughters to die on your poisoned world, as you condemned the daughters from four other worlds to die before them. Yes, I know that, too. Why do you persist in this folly, when you know it is doomed to fail?"

SesTok was stunned. Here were his own traitorous thoughts, which might yet earn him a painful death, spoken aloud. Without even looking, he could sense the ripple of insulted anger charging through the crew at the pod's perimeter. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, keeping a tight rein on his face lest his thoughts showed. "It will not fail this time. They have the marker. They will be immune to the poison."

"Then you admit the poison exists, and that your own people are dying of it. Can you really wait until the children of your sons and my daughters grow up before seeing the fruits of your plan? If it is even _possible_ for them to breed together? Do you really think you have that much time before the poison kills the rest of the SenSaru now living?" _I sure hope I've got that right. I think I do. Look at his eyes!_

SesTok's eyes were as wide as his gill slits now; he was hardly daring to breathe. _How does this female know so much? (How do I know she's female? Ah, because DonNah called her "Mother".)_ His next words were torn from somewhere deep inside. "What choice do we have? What else can we do? We must survive!"

"There are _always_ choices. There is _always_ another way. Come, Commander. Return my daughters, and let us sit down together, your wisest ones and ours, and we will come up with a solution to save your people. I know we can."

He hesitated just long enough. Donna knew he was wavering. She whispered, so quietly that no one else could hear, nor the microphone pick it up, "I don't want to die on a poisoned world. And I don't think you want to condemn me to die." She breathed a sigh of relief when apparently the translator still worked between them - not knowing it was TARDIS-powered.

He turned and gave her an unreadable look. "And you know this how?" he whispered back.

"Because you didn't kill my father."

They stared at each other for a long moment, then SesTok suddenly reached out and waved his hand over the mute sensor, killing the mike. He turned to face DonNah fully, whispering fiercely – but still too low to be overheard even by JanDel a few feet away - "Act beaten!"

She gasped and made herself flinch, lowering her gaze and hunching over slightly as though waiting for a blow.

"How fast can you run, little she-thing?"

Whatever she'd been expecting, it wasn't that. "Why?"

"Because if I free your sisters, both of us may have to run very, very fast. Listen!"

Confused, she raised her eyes back to his, and he quickly twitched his own sideways. She focused her ears on the others in the pod, hearing for the first time their muttering, which even to her sounded ominous and restless. She gave him a microscopic nod. "Just point me in a direction."

He looked at her another second, trying frantically to find a way out. "Go stand by the door again," he whispered, then barked at a normal pitch, "Back!"

She flinched again and began backing up, glancing again at her mother's face – and sending her a quick, ghostly wink, not allowing her fearful expression to drop.

Joshua – along with several others in the Control Room – caught the wink, and whispered, "She's acting!" Rose heard him and forced herself to relax slightly, keeping her expression neutral. Just then, Brennan flashed an update on the overhead screen next to the Commander's image: "Beijing ship repulsed. Zero released, zero taken. Returning aloft."

Rose did a quick mental tally. _That's three empty landers, one other with girls, two possibly with boys, and all the girls they took in the first raid. Still close to three hundred hostages. And Donna._

SesTok had been thinking furiously, studying the alien face on his screen, trying to determine how quick-witted she was and failing. All he could do was hope. He waved the mike on again, and began carefully. "Elder Mother, would you meet with me face-to-face to discuss this? I would smell the truth of your words, and that cannot come through space and circuits."

Rose stiffened in surprise at the "Elder Mother", but Josh whispered again, quickly, "It's a term of respect!" and she gave a quick, tiny, rueful smile and waved to him behind her back. She raised her chin, considering, then nodded solemnly. "I will meet with you, Commander, after you release my sons and daughters."

He looked to another screen on his railing, tapping quickly through several displays till he found what he wanted and studying it. Then he tapped Send and turned back to the comm screen. "Do you see this?"

A sudden small scramble by two of her techs caught Rose's attention, then they both waved up at the main screen. Next to the Commander's face was now a sensor map, which was immediately overlaid with a grid showing it to be the area immediately surrounding Torchwood itself. "I see it."

"This," and a large dot suddenly appeared on top of the Torchwood building, "is where your signal originates, yes?"

"It is." _Should I be getting nervous?_

"And this appears to be an open area nearby, large enough for our landers. Yes?" Another dot, this one on Jubilee Park.

She shook her head, then. "No. Too many trees – no open space. Go further south – within the bend in the river." The dot moved down to Mudchute Park, and she nodded. "Yes, there."

He turned back to the screen and, taking a deep breath, committed himself. "I will bring your sons and daughters there, and you will meet with me, yes?"

"I will meet with you there, Commander."

He nodded, and closed the connection.


	8. Mutiny

**Mutiny**

_'It was here that the story first took a sharp turn, and the tunnel snake made himself known. Never did I think such a thing would happen. Never.'_

^..^

SesTok cleared the viewscreen, thinking fast. He turned to SubCommander JanDel, "Report. Status of the landers?"

JanDel was staring at him, stunned. He didn't answer.

"Report!"

JanDel swallowed, then shook his shoulders of the issue, turning to the tactical quadrant. "All landed, four let off their loads of the male animals, but only one of them was able to pick up more females. That one is docking now. The other three are in high orbit, waiting new targets. The last two were unable to even get out the males before they were forced off the ground by the animals like the first three. They are also lifting into orbit." He turned back to SesTok and burst out, "What are you doing, Commander? Meeting with them? Returning the females? You countermand the Council!"

SesTok was worried in one corner of his mind about DonNah's reactions, but couldn't spare even a moment to glance at her. Here was his immediate problem. He gave his second a feral grin, showing all his teeth. "At least, that is what they _think_ I do. Since so many of our landers were repulsed, we do not have as many of their females as we need. I buy us time, no more; time and distraction." _And I buy __myself__ time, as well, to try to turn this around. By Marusska, that female was right, and I knew it. This is not the way. I will hear their solutions, and hope one will work – and that I can convince the Council of it, also._

_I can't get the females we already have off the ship this time. They will have to wait._ "Send the two still loaded with males down to that spot – and the one with females, too, as bait for our trap. Let them go, for now; we'll get more to replace them. Bring the empty landers back to their berths. We will find new targets after this meeting. I will go down with the females."

JanDel jerked his shoulders back, incensed out of caution by his Commander's erratic behavior, bordering on treason. "No. We should keep these females, too! Commander, we must take what we've got and go, the Council's orders were clear! We must return at once, there is no time for this!"

SesTok snarled, drawing himself up to his full height and flaring his gill slits wide. "You dare argue with your Commander? You are insubordinate! Now obey my orders!" He was aware of every pair of eyes on the bridge locked onto the two of them, watching to see which warrior would back down.

JanDel was breathing heavily, shocked that he'd found himself in this precarious position. To argue with one's Commander was bad enough, but to contemplate countermanding those orders was a path he never wanted to tread. But how much worse was it to disobey the orders of the Council of Elders, especially now, with the survival of their very race hanging in the balance? He heard a low growl run through the crew around them, had been hearing it subliminally since it began, and suddenly his will crystalized.

"No. Commander SesTok, it is _you_ who are insubordinate, to the Council. You will not take us down this current. We will follow our lawful orders." Suddenly his sidearm was in his hand and pointed at SesTok, without his even being aware of drawing it. "You will stand aside, sir."

"You think to replace me? Think hard JanDel! You will pay a very dear price if you proceed!"

"I think not, Commander. At any rate, it is for the Council to decide both our fates. _I_, at least, will have obeyed their orders." He waved to a pair of crewmen at the edge of the well without taking his eyes off SesTok. "Take the Commander and his pet and confine them to his cabin. Mount a double guard at the door." Part of him knew this was the test; which one of them would the crew support?

Evidently him. The two crewmen sprang up to each take one of the Commander's arms, and then turned to the door to collect the female.

And stopped. "SubCommander?" Everyone turned to look at the spot, and SesTok let himself grin.

DonNah had disappeared.

^..^

As the alien's face faded from Torchwood's main screen, cheers erupted, everyone turning to Rose to congratulate her success.

Almost everyone.

Joshua and Corin stood side-by-side at the back of the room, considering, then they turned to each other with concerned puzzlement written on their faces. "That was – " began Corin.

" – too easy," Joshua finished the sentence along with his father. He shook his head. "Something's wrong."

They turned back to Rose, who was holding her hand up, quelling the celebration. She looked back at her two men, her expression mirroring theirs. "Too easy," she said, though she hadn't heard them say it. "What's the catch?"

They both shook their heads. "I don't know," said Joshua. "We'll have to play this by ear, I think, till we see what they're up to."

"You don't know the details of what will have happened?" Corin asked him, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

Joshua flashed him a smile in appreciation for the delicate wording, but then shook his head again as Rose came to join them. "No. The accounts I read were skimpy on the fine points – and besides, you know better than I that a) history lies, and b) it's always in flux, especially in the details. One thing I do remember, though, is that this Commander – SesTok, was it? – is in the middle, in more ways than one. He's pivotal, and he's on the fence. At least that's what is said up ahead."

"OK." Rose took a deep breath and let it out slowly, considering. She turned back to the room, and General Myers. "We take this at face value – on the surface, while remaining on high alert until this crisis is over, and every last one of the hostages has been returned. General, may I suggest a military cordon be established around the perimeter of Mudchute Park, ready to take action if needed? Preferably with soldiers _without_ itchy trigger fingers, though. And buses on standby to take the hostages to hospital – Brennan, get two or three hospitals on the line ready to run them through. We'll need personnel to debrief them, too – Captain Bartok, that's your bailiwick."

She paused a moment, thinking hard, then turned back to General Myers again. "General, the rest of the world needs to stay on high alert, too, in case this is a distraction." He nodded, having already thought of that, and she smiled. "I should tell you your job?" she asked ironically, then turned serious again. "But I also need some quick suggestions for possible solutions to present to the Commander, in case this 'meeting' _is_ for real. Can you round some up for me from your world leaders?"

He shrugged. "I'll put the question, but at the moment, without any more information than we have, I doubt we'll get much more than 'shoot them out of the sky'."

Her expression turned rueful. "True. At least, though, try to impress upon them that _if_ the SenSaru do cooperate, we will owe it to them in turn to at least make the attempt to come up with answers in the future, if not necessarily right today."

She turned back to the screen. "Any movement towards the park from above?"

"Not yet," came the reply from a tech who'd been watching. "In fact, all the landers are headed towards the mother ship."

"Well. What is going on up there?"

^..^

Donna had backed up as close to the door as she could when SesTok had sent her off. Glancing quickly to either side, she noted that the crewmen closest to her were turned away, their eyes locked on the center of the pod. She watched as SesTok made plans to meet Mum on the planet below. When the connection was closed, taking the automatic translations with it, and everyone's words immediately reverted to nonsense, she went into high alert, concentrating on their tones and expressions – what she could see and make out of them – as hard as she could.

She saw things go south, as the other shark began obviously to argue with SesTok. She carefully reached behind her back, trying to find the door sensor without looking. It tripped and the door whooshed open just as the shark's weapon appeared in it's hand, and she melted through it, turning and running blindly down the passage. She had no idea where she was going or what she could do, but she couldn't just stand there waiting for doom to fall. _Besides, SesTok told me to run, didn't he? I just didn't think he meant it literally – at least not this soon._

She skidded to a halt at the first junction a dozen or so yards away, peeking quickly around the corner. No one in sight in either direction. Just to her right was an open doorway – the door appeared to be jammed – leading into a mechanical closet. _That's handy. Almost like they planned it for me. Is it a trap?_ _Crap, even if it is, I'm using it._ She jumped in and squirmed past an electrical waterfall of conduits and wires running from ceiling to floor, crouching down and making herself as small as possible. She tried to catch her breath, thinking furiously.

_I don't know where I am, I have no map, no weapons, no allies. There's a whole bunch of kids somewhere on this ship, but they're prisoners. How can I possibly help them? I can't even help myself._ She moaned softly in despair, then gasped and mentally shook herself. _Get a grip, Donna. You do have one ally on board. SesTok. Or rather, you're his ally. You just have to figure out a way to help him._

_We didn't come very far from his cabin to the bridge, or whatever that was. And we didn't change floors. It's got to be somewhere near here. I think I even came back out the same door._ Just as she got that far, she heard a commotion coming from the direction of the bridge, and scrunched down even further, peering through a tangle of wires towards the doorway to the corridor. Sure enough, a second later several crewmen went running past, one stopping to peer into her hiding place. The difference in light levels must have blinded him, because he withdrew after only a quick perusal and went on. The hunt for her was evidently on.

Holding her breath, she continued waiting. A minute later she was rewarded, as she saw SesTok being marched past by two crewmen, then turning left at the junction. When the noise died down, she carefully crept out from behind the conduits and peeked out. Nobody in sight. Crawling to the corner, she peered around, right and left – and spied a pair of armed crewmen standing outside a door several yards away, looking like guards. She looked closer, as best she could in the dim light; yes, it looked like the same door she'd been sitting next to such a short time before. Apparently they'd taken him back to his own cabin.

Hearing noise again from the right, she scuttled back into her hiding place, to wait out the activity and try to come up with a plan.

^..^

Half an hour later, the atmosphere at Torchwood had changed from jubilation to deepening confusion and concern. The landers had all proceeded back to the mother ship, and none of them appeared to be getting ready to return.

Rose was still standing on the camera's hot spot, watching the displays overhead and listening to the reports wafting in of the preparations in and around the landing site. Just as she opened her mouth to ask for some tea, the same observant tech sang out, "The mother ship's moving! I think... she's breaking orbit! They're leaving!"

"_Whaaat?"_ Rose cried out. "Open the comm channel back up!"

"Sending!"

"Commander SesTok! What is happening? Why are you not coming to meet me?" She tried, probably in vain, to keep her voice free of panic or outrage.

No reply.

"Commander SesTok! Please respond!" A bit of panic seeping through.

Finally, the screen overhead cleared, and showed an alien face once more. Not SesTok's, though. She recognized the SubCommander who had been on before – what was his name? JanDel.

"The traitor SesTok is no longer in command of this vessel. I am, and I take no orders from low animals like you. We are returning home. Squawk all you like, we will not reply further. Transmission ends." And with that, the line was cut. The room was silent, shocked.

Rose began to call out, but closed her mouth, realizing immediately how futile it would be. She turned to Corin and Joshua again, her eyes round with fear. "What just happened?"

Corin spoke first. "Looks like SesTok was just relieved of command."

Joshua nodded, filled with apprehension. "Mutiny."


	9. Interlude: Reunion

**Interlude: Reunion**

"Oh my god," Rose whispered. Suddenly the entire day came crashing down around her. She'd been running on adrenaline for far too many hours, had gone through losing Corin, thinking he was dead for several long minutes, getting him back, then the wracking fear for her daughter, which now was being proved out, with the worst possible outcome. She gasped, struggling to get air into her lungs, struggling to find something normal to hang on to. Corin saw and almost ran the four steps to her side, pulling her roughly into his arms and holding her tightly for several breaths, until she straightened up and pushed him (gently) off.

She looked past him, then, to Joshua a step behind, her eyes narrowing; her professional mien lost, at that moment she was only a mother. "You promised me she'd be all right. You _promised_. You call _this_ all right? My daughter is captive on an alien space ship, being taken away to god knows where across the galaxy, to a planet you say is poisoned, facing god knows what kind of experiments and procedures and certain death, and you _call this all right?" _Her voice had risen to just a hair below shouting. "How do you propose to help us out with this little problem now, Traveler? She's on a _space ship_, heading out there into deep space – " and suddenly her voice stopped dead for half a second, as if someone pushed pause, then dropped back to conversational level. " – and you've got a TARDIS," she ended, then took a deep, shuddering breath.

Joshua grinned at her. "I was wondering when you were going to remember that."

Corin jumped in. "Can you get us on board that ship?"

He considered, then shook his head. "A moving target, with their shields, just the three of us against a whole mutinous shipload, and all their hostages besides? No. I've a better idea. We'll skip ahead to SenSaru'a and be there to meet them."

"How long will it take them to get there?"

"Several days – maybe a week."

Rose narrowed her eyes again. This was her beloved son, but technically he was now older than she was, and could obviously take care of himself. Donna was still a _kid_. Well, OK, twenty-two, but still impossibly young. Rose stepped right up to Josh. "And will she still be _all right_ at the end of that week?"

Joshua looked levelly at his mother. "Yes."

"She better be. Because if she isn't, I will hold you _personally_ responsible."

He nodded, solemn. "So will I."

General Myers had been listening in, along with most everyone else in the room. "This TARDIS is some kind of spaceship? How many soldiers can it hold? Enough for a strike force?"

Joshua turned to him, mightily affronted. "_Soldiers?_ None. Not a single soldier will _ever_ be carried on my ship. The three of us will go there, discover the solution, convince them of it, and bring back every one of the hostages, _without_ any force or threat of it. Count on it, General." He turned to his parents, anger still seeping out around his edges. "Ready?"

"Ready," came two replies – no argument from either of them.

They expected him to turn on his heel and lead them out the door (wildly curious to see what his TARDIS would be disguised as – a police box? A car, perhaps?), but instead he dug into a pocket and pulled out a pair of crystal pendants, each hanging from a chain. "Put these on, and don't take them off – you'll need them each time."

Pendants around their necks, he reached into his pocket again and pulled out what appeared to be simply a hard blue ball, slightly smaller than a tennis ball. Grinning suddenly at them, he threw the ball down onto the floor between them. It didn't bounce, but landed with a sticky _bloop_. Then, with two huge, swift, sweeping movements, Joshua drew both his arms _UP_ and then flung them _OUT_ – astoundingly, pulling walls up from the floor around the three of them, then tossing them a few paces away. As quickly as that, without having taken a single step, the three of them were standing inside a TARDIS control room.

Joshua's grin got even bigger at their gobsmacked expressions. "Welcome to TARDIS two-point-oh. Pocket-sized for _my_ convenience!"

Nudging both of them with a gentle finger to a shoulder, he added, "You may want to sit down." Right beside each of them was a comfy-looking but sturdy swivel chair bolted to the deck; they took the hint and sat – collapsed - down. Joshua half-fell into another seat behind him, spun quickly around and began throwing switches and levers. A few seconds later, they _whooshed_ smoothly into the void, and he let the TARDIS drift for a while, turning back to enjoy his parents' astonishment.

"What did you do, graft on a spaceship?" Corin's voice was chock-full of admiration.

"Pretty much, yeah." Reaching out with one foot, he banged his heel hard in the middle of an eighteen-inch circle engraved into the floor mat right in the middle between the seats, and a knee-high column rose smoothly up, lifting his foot up with it – instant coffee table. He brought up his other foot and crossed them, casually leaning back as though in his own living room – which, come to think of it, it was.

The control room was vaguely triangular, with big, smooth curves at each corner rather than sharp angles. Sleek workstations ran around the entire perimeter, save a single arched entryway - double doors closed snug - between Corin's and Rose's chairs. Each seat was tucked into one of the corners, giving its occupant easy access to several feet of workspace curved around it. Corin's experienced eyes picked out flight controls around Joshua's space – obviously the Pilot's chair. Rose's station held comms, sensor arrays and environmental controls, while he was apparently sitting in the Navigator's seat. In fact, the only thing that marked the room as a TARDIS control room rather than a 'regular' spaceship – or luxury space yacht, for that matter – was the Time Rotor filling up the rounded corner in front of Joshua, his station's panels bending gracefully outward around it.

"Wow. Just wow," Rose said softly, eyes huge and shining. "This is incredible." She grinned, quickly, "It's even got windows!" Two long narrow panes stretched across the walls above the workbenches between the chairs; the swirling, sparkling Void currently lay beyond.

Corin was simply drinking it all in. "Seriously," he said slowly. "This... is a work of art. It's magnificent." He turned and smiled at his son. "You do good work."

"It wasn't all me, by a long shot. We made a damn good team: me, the Doctor, and Jenny. And others, here and there. Baby here had a lot of helpers and godparents."

Rose glanced at the arched doorway, wondering what lay beyond. "How big is it, really? As big as the other one?"

"Not a chance. We really did graft the coral into an existing spaceship; currently that's how big she still is. Eventually she might expand beyond the outer bulkheads, but for now, this is plenty of space. She's about the size of your mansion back home – or more accurately, the size of a large luxury yacht." He grinned. "Don't worry, you won't get lost."

Corin: "What impresses me most is that super-powered chameleon circuit. A blue rubber _ball? Pocket-sized?_ You've got to be kidding! And that dramatic entry? How...?" He snapped his fingers. "Oh-ho-ho! You married the chameleon circuit to a transmat, didn't you? And keyed them both to these crystals?" He touched the pendant he was wearing, and Joshua nodded. "Oh. My. Stars. Brilliant! Utterly bloody brilliant! Who thought that one up?"

Joshua grinned and held up his hand. "I got the idea from an old movie, believe it or not."

Rose was spluttering, finally catching up. "Wait, what? You mean that ball IS the TARDIS? That's not just a... communicator or something?"

Replete with satisfaction, Joshua just sat back and grinned at their reactions, all his designer's heart could ask for.

Corin shook his head, laughing. The view outside the windows caught his eye. "You put us in the Void already? And nary a bump." He turned and grinned at Rose. "The Doctor must be jealous as hell." Then, back to Joshua. "But we should get going."

"Aye-aye, sir!" Joshua swung back around and began working the controls again, concentrating. After a moment, the Time Rotor began its mesmerizing, glowing action, pumping them across the universe. Joshua peered at his monitor, puzzled. "That's not quite right." He held his hand out towards Corin without looking. "Brandon, would you punch up – ." He swung around and winced, choking off the sentence. "Sorry. Dad. Can you call up the nav program to SenSaru'a? Should be right on top there," motioning to the screen beside his father.

Corin didn't turn. He gazed at Josh, a bemused expression covering his face. "Who's Brandon? A companion?"

Josh spluttered a bit. "Um... Yeah... More or less."

Corin glanced over at Rose, more amused by the second. "That's a very enigmatic answer. Are you trying not to shock your doddering old folks?"

"What?" It took Joshua a second to catch on, then he burst out laughing. "_No,_" he said emphatically between snorts, before he caught his breath again. "No, that's not it." A deep sigh. "I'm wrestling with spoilers, actually. I honestly don't know what I can or shouldn't tell you guys right now... The story's not over yet. I haven't closed the loop."

Corin turned back to Rose again. "He gets more enigmatic with every sentence."

She nodded, as amused at her husband as her son. "Well, he came by it naturally."

"Oi! I'm not _that_ bad, am I? .. Any more?" he added as an afterthought.

She laughed, taking pity on him. "No, you've definitely improved over the years. Although, you do still have your moments..."

^..^

A short time later found the TARDIS _whooshing_ into existence on the home planet of the SenSaru. Both men stood up and leaned over Rose, punching up sensor readings on her workstation screen.

"_Something's_ off, that's for certain..." Corin pointed to the atmospheric analysis. "Check out those heavy metal isotopes. They shouldn't even be airborne!"

Joshua called up a scan of the entire continent. "They're concentrated in certain areas – oh, don't tell me!" He hit a few more buttons and groaned theatrically. "Yup. TNP power grid. Trans-nucleic-plasma. With no safeguards at all, apparently." He looked up. "They really did poison themselves."

"And those isotopes could definitely have targeted their women first."

Josh scratched his head. "So. How do you clean them off an entire planet?"

Corin shrugged. "You can't. All you can do is – well, for starters, stop pumping more out! And then it's just a matter of time. The planet will eventually absorb them back into the environment and break them down. Eventually."

"How long before you'd consider it safe for habitation?"

Corin shrugged. "With no more being added, say... twenty thousand years?"

Rose sighed. "Not a quick fix on the horizon, then." She looked at Joshua, drilling him. "Why did you tell me there was a 'permanent solution that would benefit both species', then?"

He grinned and told them what he'd discovered up in the future. Jaws dropping at first, they discussed the details, and after a few minutes wound up smiling at each other, convinced. "Now all we have to do is talk two planets of people into it."

"Watch me," said Joshua with a wink, and reached over to tap off the screen.

Suddenly, Rose's voice rang out, strict authoritarian again. "Hold it right there, young man." She grabbed his left wrist, holding his hand up to Corin. There was a glint of gold on his third finger. "Were you going to tell us about this?" She peered up at her son, grinning – which quickly faded at the look on his face.

He'd turned to stone. Turning away sharply, he pulled his hand out of her grip, balling it into a fist before dropping it down to hold it stiffly at his side. Staring at nothing, he swallowed hard, then whispered hoarsely, "There's nothing to tell. It's over. I just... I haven't been able to make myself take it off yet."

Shocked, Corin and Rose looked at each other, then they each put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, son." Corin whispered.

Turning his face further away, his eyes scrunched closed, stiff as a tree. All motherly impulse, Rose reached up and took hold of his arm, pulling him down beside her chair. He resisted for a moment, then fell to his knees and buried his face in her lap, just as he'd done as a very small boy, when the world got to be too much. Sharing bewildered looks, his parents simply waited, Corin kneeling down to put an awkward hand on his son's back.

A minute later, forcing deep breaths, Joshua slowly sat up again, showing a stoic, fiercely dry-eyed face, gazing fixedly at a point on the floor between them. "You had a grandson..." he finally managed. "Five years old... He was... everything."

A long pause. "One afternoon he got sick. Just like that... in just four hours he was gone. A new, virulent influenza attacking mostly children. He was one of the first victims."

Another pause. "She couldn't take it. She left."

Corin and Rose gazed at each other, hearts breaking for their son. "How long ago?" Corin finally asked him quietly.

Joshua shrugged. "Four years? Five?" Slowly he sat up. "I know. I know. Long enough. She's not coming back. And I'm not where she could come back to, if she did." He swallowed hard, then half-turned to his father. "You have your sonic?"

Confused, Corin nodded, and pulled out his old screwdriver from his jacket pocket. Shakily, Joshua held his left hand out to him. "My knuckle's too big." Understanding then, Corin quietly clicked up a number and buzzed it against the ring, loosening it. Joshua pulled his hand back and held it, still unable to move. Rose reached out, then, and took his hand, gently sliding the ring at last off his finger. He clenched his now empty fist and choked back a sob, then closed her hand around his ring, silently asking her to keep it.

"What was his name?" she queried softly.

"Janiver," he replied, softening the J. "It's a Boruskan name – she was Boruskan." His face twisted again, halfway between pain-filled grimace and a tiny, rueful smile. "It means 'angel'. And that he was. An angel."


	10. Enemy Mine

**Enemy Mine**

_'I've heard more crazy stories about that first journey to SenSaru'a than any incident I've ever heard of. Everything from falling in love to attempted murder, from rapes and orgies to torture and brainwashing – even witchcraft has been used to explain subsequent events. __Other versions have reversed captor and captive, even mixing the two in wild configurations. Or some have the trip lasting only minutes, while in others it took months or years._

_The truth, I'm afraid, was far more boring.'_

^..^

Donna stayed scrunched down in her hiding place for hours, trying to ignore her rumbling stomach and her cramping leg muscles. _It was late afternoon when they grabbed us; it's got to be late evening or dead night in London by now. Are they on the same day/night schedule?_

Apparently so, as noise and activity slowly died down, and even the already dim lights in the corridor dimmed further at one point. She waited a while longer, then crept out again to peer down the hall; SesTok's two guards were still there.

The only course of action she'd been able to come up with was to somehow free the Commander. There wasn't anything else she could do by herself, not that she could think of. Perhaps, if he were no longer under guard, he could regain command of the ship.

She took a deep breath, and then carefully melted around the corner, creeping slowly towards the guards. Obviously bored, they were leaning against the wall on either side of SesTok's door, idly talking, their weapons held down loosely in one paw at their side. She made it about halfway there before the one at the far side spotted her and grinned. He barked out something to his comrade, who swiveled around and snorted through his gill slits; they were laughing at her. _Good._

She'd been holding one leg stiffly out behind her; now she collapsed to the deck, cringing and moaning together, bringing that leg under her and holding it as if it were wounded. She dropped her head down, exhausted, and waited for the nearer one to shuffle over to her. He reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling her roughly to her feet. She stayed hunched over, crying out in 'pain', and limped badly as he yanked her towards the other.

Just as they reached the door, she gave another cry and started to collapse on her 'bad' leg, forcing her captor to turn towards her slightly as he bent over her to keep his grip on her arm – and then she pushed as hard as she could, lunging up into him and slamming him into the wall, while she grabbed for the weapon in his other hand. In a flash, she twisted it free and was turning to point it at the other one, only now reacting to the scuffle.

It might have worked, too, if the first guard had hit the wall at any other given point. Unfortunately, his head banged into one of the ever-present conduits, and the ancient, run-down, cobbled-together ship struck back, as the pipe was knocked loose of its nearby connector and sprayed its contents across the hallway – contents that proved to be a hot, acidic, oily substance that clung and burned. It hit Donna on her shoulder and upper arm, soaking through her Tshirt immediately, and she screamed for real as the oil burned across her senses, unconsciously dropping the weapon to the floor.

Laughing again, the second guard merely opened the door and shoved her in, then reported to JanDel that the Commander's pet had been captured.

^..^

SesTok, who had been lounging disgustedly on his bunk, heard the sounds of a scuffle outside, then shot upright as he heard DonNah's scream. When the door slid open a second later and she staggered in, he was up in a flash, crossing to her in two quick steps and catching her as she fell. His nose told him in a single sniff what the problem was; the smell of kanata oil was unmistakable.

First order of business was removing the oil as quickly as possible; it would continue to burn through flesh as long as it clung. SesTok pulled her into his tiny bathing room and flicked the lights on full, scanning to see where the oil had landed. Seeing it only across her upper torso – and some in her hair – he grabbed the bottom edge of her shirt and yanked it off over her head. Then he milked the soap pod on the wall for a large handful and began carefully working it into the oil smeared on her skin.

She flinched and squealed, trying to bat his hands away, so he grabbed hers and held them tight. "DonNah! Stop! I'm trying to help you!" She looked at him without any comprehension mingling with the pain in her eyes. "You don't understand me now, do you? The translator's gone?" Still no response, and he swore. "Boil it!" He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and looked deep into her eyes again, capturing her attention from the pain. "DonNah. I'm trying to help. Let me help. Please!" Dredging up the afternoon's 'conversation', he added, jerking his head up and down, "Yesss?"

She didn't understand, didn't know what he was doing, but he seemed to. So she nodded, sobbing quietly, and stood still as best she could. He went back to carefully rubbing the goo in his hands into the goo on her skin, and it did seem to lessen the burning some. He grabbed another handful and worked it into her hair – she almost laughed at his concentration to the task – then he washed his hands in a perfectly ordinary-looking sink. He pulled a towel out of a cubby and wet it down, then gently wiped the goo mixture off her shoulder, leaving first-degree burns from neck to elbow. At least the burning goo was gone.

Sniffing to make sure he'd gotten it all, he wet the towel again and applied it to her hair, wiping the oily soap out of the red strands. Then, pulling out another towel, he very gently went back over her skin, patting it dry.

He reached into another cubby and pulled out a round squishy gel pack, pulling a tab off one side to reveal a slit and then squeezing a bright blue jelly onto a finger. He carefully applied the jelly to the tail end of the burn by her elbow, watching her face to catch her reaction.

She gasped as the icy jelly hit the burn, swallowing it up in sweet instant numbness. She nodded enthusiastically, pushing her arm towards him, and he grinned and began spreading it liberally up her arm and shoulder. She started crying again in relief as the pain disappeared. He gestured towards her hair, and she understood: did she need the gel there, too? She started to shake her head, then dredged up his version of "no", jerking back her good shoulder and saying "Baht. I'm OK." He grinned at her for remembering, and then turned to wash his hands again.

As he straightened up again, she caught sight of his eyes wandering over her curiously, and was suddenly acutely aware that she was standing right next to a _very_ strange male wearing only a bra above her waist, and she flushed, covering her chest with both arms. He understood the motion, if not the expression, immediately, and grinned again. They both looked at her ruined Tshirt on the floor; no good. So he strode back into his cabin and pulled open a large drawer, poking through it till he found an old uniform tunic. He nipped at the insignia with his teeth then ripped them off, then ripped off the sleeves, as well – they would most likely irritate her burned skin. Turning, he handed it to her, and she took it and pulled it quickly over her head, then stood looking at him, surprised again at how... _human_ he'd become in her mind.

"Thank you," she said simply. He seemed to understand the sentiment, dipping his head at her briefly. So she picked up where they'd left off, pointing at herself and repeating it, "thank you", then pointing to him with raised eyebrows.

He got it right away this time. "Berana destok." Grinning, they repeated each other's phrase, then he motioned her to sit on his bunk, while he pulled the desk chair out and around.

And then her stomach rumbled. Startled, he stared at her, and she had to laugh at his expression. She rubbed her tummy, trying to remember the last word from earlier. "Surimi? Food?"

"Ah! Surima!" He started to get up and reach for the cubby he'd pulled the ration bars out of earlier, then stopped and looked at her again, face twisting into what she hoped meant something good. It did. He pulled out a ration bar but didn't give it to her. "Baht chan surima."

_This isn't food,_ she translated, and had to agree. "Baht."

He stalked over to the door and pounded on it. When the crewman outside yelled "What?" he called, "Do you intend to starve us, too? Bring food!" Listening closely, he heard the two confer with each other, then one of them apparently called SubCommander JanDel on his wrist commlink for permission. He must have gotten it, because the next call was to the galley, ordering two trays be brought to the Commander's cabin. SesTok turned back to Donna and grinned. "Food coming soon."

_He must have been ordering food brought._ "Good. Berana destok."

They grinned again at each other as he sat back down, but their smiles faded quickly as an awkward silence descended. After a moment, Donna sighed. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, even though he wouldn't understand a word. "I guess I'm not much of a superhero rescuer. Mum would have had you free in five minutes, I'm sure – not to mention what miracles Dad the Doctor would have done. No doubt, if he'd been on the bridge you wouldn't even have gotten mutinied against. I guess you got the wrong Gallifrey." Eyes stinging, she dashed her hand across them and sniffled, feeling thoroughly inadequate and sorry for herself and her – friend?

SesTok was frowning. The words were a mystery, but from her tone, DonNah was apologizing to him. To _him?_ After _she'd_ been the one captured and carried away to certain death? As the thought crossed his mind, he stiffened. _Not if I can help it._ She'd fallen silent, gazing at the floor and wiping water from her eyes. _Does that mean the same thing? It must – water came also when she was hurt._ Wishing they still had the translator, he spoke softly, hoping she'd somehow understand at least a little. "I'm sorry you were dragged into this, little she-thing. This is the wrong action, I'm certain now. Your Elder Mother was correct. And I'm going to make sure the Council of Elders hears it. I'll be taken before them for my trial, and I will use my right to speak to tell them how wrong this is. They will have to hear me then, they cannot refuse my right. I only hope they will smell the truth I give them."

They both fell silent again, lost in their separate thoughts, until they were roused by the door whooshing open to reveal a crewman with two food trays, both guards covering them with their weapons from behind him. He set them down on the floor and quickly withdrew.

"Food" this time proved to be a thick gloppy pottage of some sort, along with several sheets of dried green plant material, pressed flat. Donna carefully sniffed each item – the pottage frankly smelled tantalizing, if a bit sharp, with bits of meat and vegetables of several sorts, while she would swear the sheets were pressed seaweed. SesTok showed her how to scoop the pottage into a sheet and roll it up, burrito-style. She took a careful bite and rewarded him with a smile. "Good!"

Deciding her word meant 'good', he told her his version, and they each filed away another word.

Supper over, they put the trays back near the door. SesTok turned to her with an expression she was beginning to recognize as questioning. He pointed to her, then _drooped_, slumping over with his eyes closed, breathing deeply. When he straightened up again, she suddenly got it. "Sleep! Yes – sah, we sleep." She mimed the human stereotype head on folded hands, eyes closed. "Sleep."

"Sssleeep. Sessana." He gently pushed her prone on his very narrow bunk, where she'd been sitting, then pulled the cover over her. She watched him putter about a bit, pulling out what looked like an overcoat and a bundle of clothes, then he laid down on the floor against the other wall, bundle for a pillow and coat for a blanket. A final shared smile, then he stretched a long arm up to flick off the lights, leaving the ones in the bathing room burning softly.

^..^

Over the next five days, they didn't become fluent in each other's language by any stretch of the imagination, but they did cover some basics. Things got more interesting when he discovered JanDel hadn't turned off his computer access, and they quietly monitored the ship's progress and status, also using the data banks for pictures and diagrams to supplement their struggling attempts to communicate. SesTok tapped into the security system and found the cameras in the holding pens, getting a reasonably accurate idea of how the hostages were being treated: ignored mostly, but at least they were being fed. He was worried about the males that hadn't gotten offloaded, but finally found them still in the lander's cargo bay, also being fed, if not quite as often as the females. Apparently JanDel was planning to use them as slave labor.

They'd get tired of language lessons periodically, and took turns simply talking to each other, knowing that often the gist was getting through even without any details. Donna considered it a major breakthrough when he finally understood she was asking if he had any family; the answer was no; no partner, no little ones, not even before the disaster had struck. He, on the other hand, wanted to know what she was, beyond "human female", it took a couple of hours of laughing pantomime and pictures from the computer before he understood what "Doctor" meant. "Ah! A healer!" And after that, she caught him occasionally looking at her with a speculative, almost respectful look.

Finally, five days of captivity later, the computer told them they were entering his home system. They got cleaned up, putting on fresh clothes (she'd adapted another old tunic of his into a better fit after he produced needle and thread from another drawer), then sat quietly, waiting for their captors to come for them. When the door opened, they stood and allowed their hands to be bound, then walked with silent dignity down to a lander, where they were put in the cargo bay along with a handful of the other hostages being taken to the Council of Elders for show and tell.

"Donna!" squealed Cherise, one of the few girls who used to acknowledge her existence. "You're OK! We thought you were dead!"

The guards left in the cargo bay barked at them to be quiet, flicking a force whip as a reminder. Donna smiled at Cherise, but didn't get a chance to reply. Glancing at SesTok beside her, staring straight ahead at nothing, face impassive, she decided silence was the better option, and settled back.

A bumpy ride later, they were herded again out the door and down the ramp onto pavement, standing at last in the open air, on an alien planet. They weren't given time to enjoy it, though, as they were pushed up into the back of a covered transport and the flap pulled down. They sat on the floor together in the dark, swaying and jostling for several minutes, then the movement ceased, and the flap raised again, finding themselves in a large garage-like structure.

Pushed into a line with SesTok in the lead, they were again herded through a doorway, down a large rough-hewn rock tunnel that drifted slightly downward about three dozen yards or so towards a growing roar and – after a slight pause – on through a pair of massive doors and into the Meeting Chamber of the SenSaru Council of Elders, to meet their fate.


	11. Trial

**Trial**

The ornate doors at the end of the tunnel surprisingly deposited the prisoners onto a bright sandy surface. As they were nudged onward by the guards, the deepening roar they'd heard in the tunnel resolved itself into two categories: surf and sharks.

The SenSaru Council Meeting Chamber proved to be not a chamber at all, but an open-air natural amphitheater set into a tumbling cliff face beside a restless ocean. The flat side of the half-circle was open to the sea view, with gigantic waves crashing against the rocks below, foamy spray from the largest waves occasionally splashing over the waist-high boulders lining the edge of the central pit where they now stood. A gleaming white wall, looking like it was made from an actual sea shell, arced gracefully up and over their heads, forming an echo box to reflect the voices of anyone standing in the pit out and up to the spectators.

Those spectators were now present in abundance, providing the other half of the roar. Blinking in the bright sunshine slanting down from seaward, Donna estimated close to a thousand SenSaru were seated on the rough rock benches lining the half-bowl scooped out of the cliff, while about thirty individuals sat on the bottom row, separated from the rest by a high wall: these must be the Council members themselves. Another gleaming white wall ran around the top of the cliff, curving over the highest rows of seats and completing the sound corral. A small living stream, which must have carved out the amphitheater over the eons, divided the bowl roughly in half, spilling from the top of the cliff and gurgling in a deep channel between the seats, across the pit, and over the edge to the ocean below.

Their guards chivvied the girls into a line under the lip of the echo shell with SesTok a pace in front; Donna inserted herself into the center of the line right behind him. SesTok's chief accuser and former second in command, JanDel, was already present, facing the crowd a few paces in front of them as if he didn't want to be contaminated by standing too close. As soon as they were lined up, a deep resounding gong sounded from below and the crowd fell silent. On one side of the ring, a SenSaru in a long dark green robe stood up from the Council row and began speaking, apparently questioning JanDel, who replied at length with many gestures (which looked derisive to Donna's eyes) towards the Commander.

Donna stood quietly, forcing herself to take deep, even breaths. If she had understood SesTok correctly, he was on trial here for disobeying the Council's orders, but he would be allowed to speak on his own behalf, and intended to beg the Council to reconsider other alternatives – what, she didn't know, nor did she suspect he did. If only he'd been able to meet with Mum!

Two paces in front of her, SesTok's own thoughts were running in the same channels. _Marusska Moon, shine on my shoulders this day. Scent my words with Truth, that they may understand and swim away from this evil current before it is too late. Hit me with inspiration; show me another way!_

Busy with her own thoughts, Donna didn't hear the change until the girl next to her quietly gasped. "Am I going crazy, or did they just start speaking English?"

They had. JanDel was even now proclaiming what a traitor SesTok was. Donna gave a slow gasp herself, her eyes widening in realization. _It's got to be Mum. It's got to be._ How on Earth Torchwood had gotten here with their translator, she didn't know, but she'd never been so glad to hear her native tongue. She leaned forward slightly and whispered, "SesTok! Do you hear my words? Reinforcements have arrived!" He didn't turn, but she saw his shoulders move as he took a deep breath on hearing her whisper in SenSaru. He gave a small, jerky nod, and she smothered a smile.

"Donna! What are you _doing?_" squealed Cherise, gaining them a hiss from the guards.

"Oh, shut up, Cherise. He's on our side – why do you think he's in handcuffs like us?" Donna snapped quietly. Cherise's jaw dropped, but she did shut up.

The Councilor in the green robe tipped his head to JanDel, who gave a half-bow in return, and stepped to a seat at one side of the pit, then the Councilor turned to SesTok. "You have heard the accusations. It is your right to speak now before the Council, Commander."

_He sounded my rank. That's a good sign. I think._ SesTok had not paid close attention to the individual Councilors in recent years, so he was not at all certain of the identity or leanings of this one. One thing he was certain of, though. He waited several long moments, then held his bound hands out in front of his chest. "It is also my right to stand freely before my people, until convicted. Is this Council so afraid of Truth that you would bind the hands of those who would sound it before you?"

A murmur rose from the spectators, roughly equally for and against him, from what he could hear. Green Robe gazed at him impassively for a moment, but didn't confer with the other Councilors before jerking his head at one of the guards, who walked stiffly over and removed the forceropes from SesTok's aching wrists. The guard started to turn, but SesTok stopped him. "The females, too." When the guard hesitated, looking at Green Robe, SesTok added, "I don't think they could cause much damage. Besides, is this how you would treat the mothers of our next generations?"

Green Robe jerked his head yes again, and both guards quickly removed the girls' forceropes, then stepped back to either end of their line, facing in to make the point: we're still watching. Donna ignored them, lifting her chin and gazing at SesTok, and the other girls followed her lead. She seemed to understand the situation.

SesTok shook his shoulders and stepped forward two paces, took a deep breath, and began making his plea for sanity. "Here stands Commander SesTok of the SenSaru Galactic Armada. I have loyally followed the lawful commands of my superiors for more than twenty years, and gained command of my ship before the Great Disaster began striking down our wisest ones, and all our Mothers and Sisters. I do not discount the magnitude of the Disaster, nor do I misunderstand it – but I believe that many do. Including many in this Chamber.

The Truth has been sounded to my depth. Our home, our safe cove, our beloved SenSaru'a is _dying_. More, she is killing _us_, her children. We cannot long survive if we stay within her waters. Our actions until now seemed wise, to try to bring new Mothers from other worlds to replace the ones taken from us, but now I smell the Truth: that course is folly. Four times we have tried this, and four times it has failed. A fifth will not then succeed. We must set a different course, swim a different current. We cannot continue this, or we will ALL swim to our deaths, and there will be no more SenSaru!

I stand before you now to beg that you reconsider, and choose another channel!"

Green Robe seemed to be the spokesman for the Council. He stepped forward again, challenging SesTok. "What other channel? There IS no other!"

"There are _always_ other channels, other choices," came an entirely new voice, this one from the side of the bowl opposite Green Robe. And it was one that made Donna close her eyes against stinging tears. _Mum._

Rose stepped onto the sand from the tunnel, with Corin and the Traveler flanking her a step behind, playing honor guard. She took four steps and stopped, saying in a clear voice above the murmurs which had broken out, "May I address the Council?"

Green Robe's face mirrored the shock resounding through the amphitheater. "Who are _you_?" he demanded, all ceremony forgotten. No one not SenSaru had _ever_ spoken before the Council before.

"Rose Gallifrey, of the planet Earth – the planet Commander SesTok just raided. I am not the supreme leader of Earth, but I was given the mandate to speak with SesTok, and therefore with this Council, to resolve the situation. That situation has now expanded to include the Great Disaster your species, your world, is faced with. I have traveled here to offer you a solution, which will benefit us both."

SubCommander JanDel broke in, all caution thrown to the surf. "How did you get here?"

The trio turned, but it was the Traveler who replied, a hair short of insolent. "On your ship. Sloppy, JanDel, very sloppy. The Commander would have known we were there." He turned to SesTok and added with a wink, "Wouldn't you?"

_I remember that signal – DonNah gave it to her Mother. _"I _did_ know," he said decisively, awkwardly returning the wink. "Who do you think was feeding you?"

JanDel spluttered. "That... you... that is not possible!"

"SubCommander!" Green Robe had had enough of that, and JanDel slunk back to his seat. Green Robe turned and swept his eye along the line of Councilors; when no-one seemed to object violently, he turned back to Rose. "You may address the Council. What other channel do you see?"

She smiled, and took another step forward, speaking directly to Green Robe, but pitching her voice so that all could hear. "A joint colony. A combined endeavor, between your people and mine, on a neutral, third planet, unspoiled and uninhabited, where together we can build a new, viable society."

A new murmur rose from the crowd, reaction to her speech. One of the Councilors cried out, "We cannot leave SenSaru'a! It is our home!"

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but SesTok broke in. "We _must_ leave! We are _dying!_ We _cannot_ stay!" _Yes, she has the right of it. I'm sure of that now._ He turned to Rose, "Do you know of such a planet now?"

She smiled. "We do."

He started to nod, but then remembered the readings they'd taken of the technology on Earth. "But you have no starships!"

Her smile got even broader. "_You_ do."


	12. There It Is

**There It Is**

_'Of course, it wasn't that easy. It took several more meetings with the Council members, both privately in small groups, and all together before the now-packed Council Chamber – and broadcast on their media channels to the entire planet – before the SenSaru were half convinced of it. First the human visitors provided incontrovertible proof that the up-til-then ignored SenSaru scientists had been correct: the poison was coming from their own power grid, and would take thousands of years to 'wash' safely out of the environment. Then the Traveler took the entire Council in his ship to visit the proposed site of the colony – and that did it. None of you now reading these words could fail to appreciate the impact of standing on our beloved Pacifica, gazing out over the crystal waters of SanSara Bay – for that is where they came. The historical marker on Star Point, at least, is accurate. After that, the SenSaru began immediate preparations for the removal of their entire remaining population to Pacifica, whether Earth would join them or not._

_That, of course, was a whole different kettle of fish.'_

^..^

Donna only paid half attention to the conversation in the Council Chamber, the other half just drinking in the sight of her parents and trying not to faint from relief. By necessity, Rose had turned away after a single searing glance to carry on her negotiations, but Corin gazed at her steadily for a while, seeming to give and get courage and reassurance in equal measure. (Donna had only glanced at the third member of the party; he seemed familiar but she couldn't place him.)

They both returned their attention to the goings-on when SesTok suddenly laughed aloud – the loudest and closest to a human laugh that Donna had heard. "Ah, so you would propose that we provide your colonists with their transportation as well? And what, then, would you bring to the colony in return, Elder Mother of Earth?"

Rose was genuinely enjoying this, now that her daughter was safe. Part of her was swept back to the days of traveling with the Doctor, solving mysteries and problems and stopping wars wherever they went. She now proceeded to lay out the rest of the Traveler's proposed plan. (The three of them had agreed that Rose should continue in the lead, taking advantage of the SenSaru's natural respect for their women under their matriarchal society. Besides, she did have the mandate from the Earth governments – stretched as it was.)

"The colonists themselves," she replied to SesTok, also half-turning to address the Council, "and I propose they include many more females than males. We would also send along our best genetic and reproductive scientists, and all the equipment they need to set up a top-notch – that is, the best and most complete laboratory and clinic they can, in order to help the SenSaru past your current bottleneck. I do not know if humans and SenSaru can interbreed, but there are other options, and our scientist colonists would have the continuation of the SenSaru race as their top priority." She whispered to SesTok, "Did all that translate correctly?" and he gave her a grin and a human-style nod.

Green Robe broke in. "Are you suggesting that your females would be willing to bear and raise our young? They would do so voluntarily?"

Rose faced him squarely. "Yes, I believe that we will be able to find a large number of individuals willing to both colonize a new world, and to do what is needed to help you, including the bearing and raising of young. We are a very large population, immensely so. I am certain that if the call goes out, the right people will respond."

Green Robe was skeptical, as were many others, judging from the muttering. "They would leave their homes, their planet, and travel willingly across the galaxy to a new planet, and then do this as well?"

Donna surprised even herself by stepping forward at that point. "I would. _If_ it were a genuine _choice._" SesTok wasn't the only one who turned to gaze at her in shocked surprise.

"So would I," said the girl two places to her left, also stepping up beside her. "I would _jump_ at the chance to join a colony on a new world, and the challenge of keeping _any_ species from going extinct is one of man's highest callings." She looked determined not to faint.

"That is easy to say, here on these sands, when faced with grim alternatives," scoffed Green Robe.

SesTok whirled about, bristling. "They are _healers_, Respected Elder. Are you saying that healers would lie? Even those of another people?"

The humans may not have understood the reasons, but the crowd's reaction to SesTok's revelation was unmistakable. They felt the tide of opinion unexpectedly turning. Green Robe's gill slits flared wide as he stared at SesTok for a moment, then the girls. Then he turned abruptly away and addressed the rest of the Council. "How does this current run, my brothers? Will you hear more and consider this choice?" He swept his left hand far out to his side, and one by one each of the Councilors sitting around the ring leaned in that direction, until every one was tilted. If the situation hadn't been so serious, the sight might have been comical, but none of the humans even smirked.

Green Robe turned back to Rose. "Will you come speak with us in closed session? There are too many eyes and mouths here."

Rose began to assent, but SesTok broke in above her. "Forgive me, Respected Elder, but I am still on trial here. Is there a ruling in this matter?"

Green Robe considered him. "You gave no real defense of your actions, Commander. Would you give one now?"

"My defense is merely that I was attempting to meet with this Elder Mother," he waved a hand at Rose, unwilling to try her name, which he had never really gotten down, "to discuss these very ideas. SubCommander JanDel mutinied against me, preventing the meeting, and wrongfully accusing and imprisoning me. I ask for judgment against him for his actions."

"Were you not releasing the ones already captured, as JanDel has said?"

"Only the remaining males from our first sweep, and a few females, at that point. I had to show good faith to this one in order to speak with her." He shot an apologetic glance at Rose for that bit of deception, as he'd led her to believe he was bringing all the hostages back.

Green Robe grunted, and turned back to the Council again. "How does this current run, my brothers? Does the Truth stand with Commander SesTok," and he again swept his left hand out to that side, "or with SubCommander JanDel?" sweeping his right hand out. Again, one by one, every Councilor leaned to the left. SesTok was cleared, and he turned to Donna, sharing an elated grin.

The Councilor waved a hand to the guards, who immediately quitted the line of girls and surrounded the hapless SubCommander. He turned back to SesTok to complete the judgment. "For mutiny, and for attempting to dishonor you, he is yours, for five years. What will you do with him?"

"I want no unwilling slave on my ship. The SenSaru need laborers, especially if we are to colonize a new world. Let him be one." Green Robe nodded again to the guard, and they dragged a shocked but unprotesting JanDel back through the doors to the tunnel.

Green Robe then turned to the silent, watching crowd. "This open Council session is ended. We will meet with the visitors after the midday meal in the smaller chamber. You will hear our decision when it is reached." He turned to another guard standing by the entrance tunnel door. "Escort them all to that chamber now, and see they have food, as well."

^..^

Donna and her parents managed to maintain their decorum until they were safely inside the smaller chamber; as soon as the door closed behind their guard, she rushed to Rose's arms. Donna felt the facade of courage she'd maintained the five days since her abduction melt away as Dad's arms too surrounded both of his women, and all three simply held on for several minutes. SesTok grinned at them and left the chamber again with the guard to see about food, as he had an idea by now what might appeal to DonNah, and by extension the other humans. The other girls drifted to one side of the chamber to give the reunited family space, while the Traveler crossed his arms and leaned against the huge rock table, frankly watching the trio with a grin before turning to take in the impressive surroundings.

This one actually was a chamber, open not to the sky above, but sideways to the ocean. It had been carved out of solid rock to one side of the amphitheater; the table and benches were the living rock as well, carved in place and unmovable. Another waist-high ledge ran along the edge, but the huge window left above it was unglazed, and the constant teasing winds carried in the sounds and scents of the sea life as well as the surf.

When each of them had been reassured that the others really were all right, Donna asked, bewildered, "But how _did_ you get here, really?"

Corin waved Joshua over. "In his TARDIS." He grinned at Donna, waiting for the coin to drop.

Turning, Donna really looked closely at the stranger for the first time, seeing his resemblance to Corin, while the old word sunk in. Slowly she gasped. "Joshua?" She stepped closer. "Is that you, Brat?"

Joshua grinned. "Hey, Sis."

"You're a Time Lord now. With a TARDIS." She stated them as facts, rather than questions. He nodded, not catching the growing glint in her eye – and suddenly was rocked by a stinging slap to his face.

"Ah. There it is," he remarked calmly, mystifying the others, but they didn't get a chance to query him as Donna slipped into redheaded volcano mode.

"You _left_ me there on that ship. You _left_ me, and you could have come and rescued me at any time!"

"Yes, I did. You were needed right where you were."

"'_Needed'!_ For _what?_"

"To lay the ground work for Mum, so her proposal would be listened to properly."

Donna was completely outraged now. "But you could have prevented this whole thing! You could have kept the SenSaru from even coming to Earth! You could have sent them somewhere else!"

Joshua was doing a fair job of matching her rising temper. "And if I had, they'd all be dead – _extinct_ – in less than 10 years. I am a _Time Lord_, Donna. I'm not here just to protect _you_, or my family, and I'm not here just to protect humans alone. I'm here to help and protect _everyone, every species._ By taking this route, I'm doing just that – helping and protecting two intelligent species, two planets of people, at once." Growing even more exasperated, he stared at his sister's mutinous, unforgiving face. "What the hell is your problem?"

She took a shuddering breath. "You have no idea what I've been through. I was so scared..."

Joshua shook his head, disgusted. "Right. Let's just forget about anyone else. Let's just let this entire species _die_, and keep humans trapped on Earth, so we can rescue little Donna Gallifrey, because _you were scared._" He paused, then gave a disgusted snort. "Grow up."

Eyes stinging, she whirled and walked stiffly over to the window, staring out at the ocean.

Corin turned to Joshua, disturbed at the distant echoes from his own past – even he recognized that the Doctor had frequently been incredibly arrogant. "That was harsh," he said, keeping his tone mild. "She _is_ your sister, and she's only twenty-two."

Josh just looked at him levelly. "Don't play the family card, Dad. It goes both ways."

The door opened again just then, and SesTok re-entered, followed by several SenSaru carrying trays of food, which they set down on the table and left again. The girls clustered around, discovering fruits and breads and bits of cooked meat, with pitchers of cool, clear water. While the individual items tasted quite different, the analogy to an Earth picnic was reassuring, and they set to with satisfaction; they hadn't been getting fed nearly as well as Donna and SesTok had.

SesTok looked at Donna still staring out the window, curious, then walked softly over to stand beside her. "DonNah?"

She sniffed and swiftly scrubbed at her face, wiping off tears that had snuck down her cheeks before she turned to smile shakily at her friend. "I'm glad you were cleared."

He returned her smile. "Good, the translator is still on. I, too, am happy to be free. And I am happy to be able to speak clearly with you at last." He paused for emphasis, knowing this might be the only such time he might get, and that short. "You will be a good healer, DonNah. You listen beneath the surface, and your eyes see clearly. You know the Truth when it is sounded to your depth."

Surprised and touched, she didn't know what to say, especially after the last few minutes. Finally, she settled for a simple, "Thank you... my friend."

He gazed at her a moment longer, then nodded, and turned away, drawing her with him to her family. He smiled at Rose, "I am happy to meet you face to face at last, Elder Mother. Uh – I never caught your name. How shall the SenSaru address you?"

"Rose will do fine." She turned slightly, bringing the two men in. "This is my mate, Corin. And this is... the Traveler." Though it felt supremely weird to introduce her son this way, she certainly understood the various names of a Time Lord, and wasn't going to contravene the custom.

SesTok had been studying Corin's face, and thought he recognized him. He asked Donna, aside, "Isn't this one...?" She nodded, and he turned back to Corin. "I wish to tell you, I am sorry for stunning you during our raid. I did not want to do it."

Corin was taken aback. There were unexpected depths to this alien. He smiled slowly. "All right. Apology accepted. The incident is forgotten."

SesTok nodded, and turned to the other man. "I missed your name?"

"Just call me the Traveler. That's all."

SesTok shook his head, not quite understanding, but he had more important things on his mind. He turned back to Rose. "This planet you speak of, for the colony. It truly does exist?"

"It does. We can take you there."

"And will it really work? You speak the Truth? Will my people survive? Will your people join us?" Even without the TARDIS translator, his desperation showed through. He didn't want empty reassurances, he wanted the truth.

The Traveler put a hand on SesTok's arm, recapturing his attention. This was his territory. "Commander. I'm not just a Traveler in space, I'm a Traveler through time. I have been to the future, the far future. And I tell you this now: yes. It will work. Your people will survive, and thrive, merged with humans into a new mingled species, keeping the best of both. And history will record this as not only the first successful off-world colony for both humans and SenSaru, but the first step for both species further into the universe.

"And more, I tell you this. SenSaru'a is not lost forever. Some day, your children's children's children will come back. They will come, from this colony we establish now, to reclaim and resettle this planet after the poison has gone, though it will take millenia.

"The SenSaru will someday come home, and swim in the sweet waters under the eyes of Marusska Moon once more."


	13. Journal

**Journal**

_The ancient journal continued:_

_'It took three years for the SenSaru to move their entire population to the new colony, though their ships continued making supply and salvage runs for several years after that. They, at least, got started right away. It took Earth's Human population most of that three years just to make the decision to mount and support the colony, let alone get started making preparations._

_Final convincing, and the largest source of colonists, came from an unlikely source – unlikely at first glance, at least: Global Warming. As my readers know, our beloved Pacifica is made entirely of islands; indeed, our largest land mass is less than half the size of the smallest of Earth's continents. Which made it a perfect destination for the populations of all the islands and low coastlines being slowly inundated by the rising sea levels on Earth. A single trip to Pacifica by the leaders of those island nations is all it took; they had their people begin packing the moment they returned. And as most of them were living a very simple lifestyle to begin with, they had a much easier transition of it than those who came from the technically advanced flooded cities such as New Orleans and Venice._

_Quite a bit of the initial resistance, of course, was sheer outraged reaction to the original raid by Commander SesTok carrying off some three hundred mostly female captives. His willingness to return them, and his very public apology, did much eventually to carry the day. The fact that he immediately took action upon learning of the ill treatment four of the girls had suffered during his captivity at the hands of a few of his crew was also a huge factor in his favor, and by extension the SenSaru. He took pains to discover the identity of those crewmen and turned them over to the girls they had wronged as their 'slaves', their punishment by SenSaru justice. The girls, learning they could, each decided to return the slaves to SesTok for their terms of service; he put them into the same pool of common laborers as he had his former second, JanDel. Although SenSaru justice is harsher and more primitive than that of so-called sophisticated Earth societies, the case marked only the first of many adjustments to be made on both sides.  
_

_SesTok made regular runs between Earth, SenSaru'a, and Pacifica those first three years, carrying diplomats, scientists, and supplies, and then offered his ship as the flagship for the transport of the Human colonists when their turn came. He also carried three linguists that entire time; by the time the first Human colonists were ready to move, they had developed not only a good English/SenSaru dictionary, but also basic courses to teach both sides the other's language. (English became the de-facto Human common tongue early on, following the worldwide trend already in existence.)_

_The three year delay worked for me, as well, as I was able to finish out my residency during that time, switching from brain surgery to general surgery and practice, and so could volunteer for the colony as a much-needed doctor. I didn't have the training to join the team of biologists working on SenSaru reproduction, but general practitioners were needed as much as geneticists were. In fact, I didn't even make it to the colony to live for several more years, as SesTok requested I join his ship as a healer for the Humans in transit, as well as his own crew. We retired from Fleet service together some eight years after that and built our home overlooking Marusska Bay, to raise our family._

_The first few 'generations' of SenSaru children were ninety-eight percent infertile SenSaru clones, created in the lab and gestated in Human wombs, the same as in-vitro children already being created on Earth. Only after they had a good grasp on the natural SenSaru biology did they begin slowly integrating the two genomes, aided by the discovery of a genetic catalyst, leading eventually to the naturally cross-fertile population being born today. The genetic lab was only closed five years ago, no longer needed._

_Our children, mine and SesTok's, were obviously of some of the first generations, very close to being his clones. Their children, our grandchildren, were therefore also started in the lab, but our recent great-grandchildren are all proudly natural-born._

_Even though there were many SenSaru factions - and human ones, too - who did not want to "pollute the bloodlines" with each other's stock, sensible heads prevailed there, too. I wrote this also as a reminder of the dire situation of the time; the SenSaru would not have lived even another twenty years on their home planet, nor another generation without that mixing._

_So, dear reader, I hope that I have laid to rest at least some of the untruths surrounding our early days and the founding of Pacifica. I didn't seduce SesTok, or the Council, and I certainly didn't start an intergalactic incident which had to be covered up by becoming pregnant! Nor were there wars, or unwilling captives ripped from their homes and forced to become colonists against their will, nor was SesTok a traitor to the Council or SenSaru'a. _

_Marusska's Promise, as made through the Traveler, will yet come true, when our distant children return home to SenSaru'a._

_The Truth is always more interesting than the Lie._

_Here stands Donna Marie Gallifrey n'ta SesTok, First Elder Mother of Pacifica. _


	14. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_The Archivist returned to the room to see the man standing stiffly, stretching and putting on his coat. "You are leaving? Have you found what you were looking for at last, Sssir?"_

_The man smiled. "Yes, Archivist, I found it. My gratitude is yours for the successful end of my search. But now, I must be going. I have a date with a slap, and I'm about five thousand years late."_

_That made no sense to the Archivist, but he shook it off, instinctively wanting to connect with the quietly charismatic stranger._ "_A moment, Sssir. I didn't catch your name?"_

"_Oh, I'm just a Traveler, passing through. Farewell, Archivist." And he was gone._

_The Archivist smiled to himself at the man's evident whimsy, as he turned and reverently picked up the ancient volume. Suddenly he gasped, whirling to stare briefly at the now-empty doorway, then back down to the Journal of the Blessed Elder Mother. He carefully turned to the front page, the mysterious Dedication which had caused so very many heated arguments over the five millennia since Pacifica's founding, some to the point of armed conflict between adherents of differing interpretations._

**_To the Traveler:  
I'm sorry I slapped you._**


End file.
